The Department of Justice (DOJ) is accusing Google of routinely destroying internal messaging chat histories, which the company is required to preserve under federal rules for an antitrust lawsuit. Google is grappling with not just one, but a couple of antitrust lawsuits filed by the DOJ and groups of states. This particular case pertains to the lawsuit the department filed back in 2020 for "unlawfully maintaining monopolies" around search and search-related advertising.

In the DOJ's filing, it said company employees typically used their internal chatroom, which was set to delete history every 24 hours, to discuss "substantive and sensitive business." Apparently, the agency expected Google to change its chat history setting in 2019 when the company "reasonably anticipated [the] litigation," but it left the decision to individual employees. Only a few people deemed their chat histories relevant to the case and preserved theirs for the court, and Google continued deleting most people's chats even after the lawsuit was filed. 

Despite that, Google reportedly told the government that it had already "put a legal hold in place" to suspend auto-deletion on its chat tool. The DOJ alleges that the company's claim was a lie and that it only truly stopped deleting chat histories this week after it was warned that the agency would file a motion for sanctions. It's now asking the court to rule that Google had violated a federal rule and to order a hearing that would determine how the company would be sanctioned. The DOJ also wants the court to order Google to provide more information about its chat practices. 

Google, however, denies the DOJ's allegations. A spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal: "Our teams have conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation. In fact, we have produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world."

Mercedes-Benz is developing a new in-house operating system to power its next generation of electric vehicles. Announced today at an event the automaker held in California, Mercedes said MB.OS – short for Mercedes-Benz Operating System – will deliver enhancements in safety, automated driving and navigation.

The automaker is working with several partners to build its new software stack, including NVIDIA, Luminar and Google. Mercedes will lean on NVIDIA for the company’s software, data and AI expertise. The GPU maker's Orin chipset will also power the first generation of electric cars Mercedes builds based on its upcoming Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA) platform. The automaker expects the first MMA EV to arrive by mid-decade.

Mercedes-Benz

As for Luminar and Google, the former will provide Mercedes with its LiDAR technology, while the latter will work with the company to build a branded navigation experience incorporating features from Google Maps. In the meantime, Mercedes is partnering with Google to bring the company’s “Place Details” data to all cars that sport the latest version of its MBUX infotainment system. You can use the integration to look up a local business, find out when it opens, and see photos of the inside and what other Google users have to say about it. Mercedes plans to open MB.OS to other partners as well, including TikTok, Zoom and even Angry Birds developer Rovio.

All MMA EVs will ship with the hardware needed for Level 2 automated driving. Mercedes is also working with NVIDIA and Luminar to offer Drive Pilot, a Level 3 automated driving system. The software will arrive later this year in 2024 EQS and S-Class models. Naturally, MB.OS will also enable Mercedes to deliver over-the-air updates, allowing it to add new features to existing cars.

The company isn’t shy about the fact that some upgrades may cost a one-time fee or come as part of a subscription package. In fact, Mercedes has already announced a handful of software bundles it will offer to owners of cars with MB.OS. MB.Connect, for instance, will bring together the company’s navigation, entertainment and communication features in one package. Other bundles, such as MB.Charge, will provide customers with priority access to Mercedes-Benz charging stations. The automaker says it will allow drivers to explore and buy upgrades for their Benz online, through the Mercedes mobile app and directly from the car.

“The company is confident that this strategic approach to software and hardware development will be the basis for lifetime revenues as well as additional contributions,” Mercedes said, adding it expects software revenue from bundles like MB.Connect to contribute “a low-to-mid single-digit billion euro figure” to its bottom line by mid-decade.

Bungie has been embroiled in a legal battle with cheat provider AimJunkies since 2021, with both sides slapping the other with lawsuits. Now, the game developer has walked away with $4.3 million in damages and fees after a victory in an arbitration proceeding, according to TorrentFreak. Bungie first sued AirmJunkies in 2021, accusing it of copyright and trademark infringement for hosting "Destiny 2 Hacks" on its website. 

US District Court Judge Thomas Zilly ruled mostly in favor of AimJunkies last year, deciding that Bungie had failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove its claim. However, he gave Bungie the chance to present more evidence. That copyright infringement lawsuit is still headed to trial, but Zilly apparently referred the non-copyright-related aspects of the case to arbitration. 

TorrentFreak says arbitration Judge Ronald Cox has decided that AimJunkies and "Destiny 2 Hacks" developer James May violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Cox based his decision on May's previous testimonies that he connected reverse engineering tools to the game in order to create cheats for it. May also said that Bungie caught and banned him several times for doing so, but that he looked for methods to circumvent the bans. 

Since AimJunkies sold and profited from May's creation, the judge found it liable. Cox also found AimJunkies and its parent company Phoenix Digital Group liable for selling not just game cheats, but also the loader used to inject cheats into games. Based on evidence presented, AimJunkies sold over 1,000 copies of the cheats and over 1,000 copies of the cheat loader. In addition to the evidence and May's statements, one other reason why Cox sided with Bungie was because AimJunkies owner David Shaefer underreported the website's cheat sales. "Given respondents' egregious and willful conduct, including their ongoing concealment of sales, Bungie is entitled to the full statutory damages available," he wrote in his decision. 

As a result, Bungie was awarded $3.65 million for all DMCA-related violations and an additional $700,000 for fees and other costs. According to TorrentFreak, Bungie will use this victory as part of its argument in AimJunkies' countersuit in which it accused the developer of violating its ToS for reverse-engineering its cheat software. AimJunkies also previously claimed that Bungie illegally hacked May's computer, but the court dismissed that complaint last year. 

NBA Hall of Famer Paul “The Truth” Pierce agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission over a cryptocurrency he promoted on Twitter. The SEC charged Pierce with making false and misleading promotional statements about EthereumMax (EMAX) and failing to disclose the $244,000 payment in tokens he received for plugging it on social media.

The SEC said Pierce also posted a misleading screenshot of an account showing much more in EMAX holdings and profits than his account had. Pierce also tweeted a link to the currency’s website, including instructions on purchasing EMAX tokens. The government agency found that Pierce violated anti-touting and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws.

The retired NBA legend and former ESPN studio analyst didn’t admit or deny the SEC’s findings as part of the settlement. However, he did agree not to promote crypto for three years. Pierce’s case echoes Kim Kardashian’s $1.26 million settlement in October for plugging the same currency. Pierce and Kardashian were also sued last year for their involvement in the scheme.

“This case is yet another reminder to celebrities: The law requires you to disclose to the public from whom and how much you are getting paid to promote investment in securities, and you can’t lie to investors when you tout a security,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a statement today. “When celebrities endorse investment opportunities, including crypto asset securities, investors should be careful to research if the investments are right for them, and they should know why celebrities are making those endorsements.”

The Federal Trade Commission is opening a dedicated technology office that will place Silicon Valley under more scrutiny and help it stay on top of emerging tech and trends in a fast-moving market. Commissioners voted 4-0 on Thursday to create the office.

Under the direction of chair Lina Khan, the FTC has trained its focus on tech companies. Last year, Epic Games agreed to a record $520 million settlement following FTC allegations that it violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The agency has also attempted to block Microsoft's proposed takeover of Activision Blizzard and sued to stop NVIDIA from buying ARM (NVIDIA backed out of the deal).

Moreover, the FTC has looked into Amazon's purchases of One Medical and MGM, according to reports. However, the agency failed in an attempt to block Meta's takeover of Within.

“For more than a century, the FTC has worked to keep pace with new markets and ever-changing technologies by building internal expertise," Khan said in a statement. "Our office of technology is a natural next step in ensuring we have the in-house skills needed to fully grasp evolving technologies and market trends as we continue to tackle unlawful business practices and protect Americans.”

The Office of Technology will support FTC’s investigations by the antitrust and consumer protection divisions into business practices and the tech behind them. It will advise FTC staff and commissioners on policy and research. Additionally, it will shine a spotlight on emerging tech and market trends that affect the FTC's work.

“Actually being able to have staff internally to approach these matters and help with subject matter expertise is critical," FTC chief technology officer Stephanie Nguyen, who will lead the department, told The Washington Post. The agency aims to more than double its number of technology-focused staff from 10 to around 22.

“The areas ... we will focus on is to work on cases,” Ngyuen said. “This means understanding the specific market and business models. This means articulating the platform’s technologies and services. And this means analyzing the competition and key market players.”

With more expertise and a deeper understanding of how tech companies operate, the office could help the agency fine-tune subpoenas and the details of settlements to make them more impactful. The team will help fellow FTC bureaus with other cases (most companies use tech, after all), but its core mandate is to keep a close eye on the tech sector.

The move to create the office and expand the agency's roster of tech experts comes at a time of great upheaval in the industry. Microsoft and Google recently detailed plans to embed AI chatbots into their search engines and other services.

Amid ongoing unionization efforts at the company, Activision will soon require Blizzard employees to spend the majority of their week working out of the company’s offices. An Activision spokesperson told Engadget employees with the company’s publishing unit will be required to work from the office at least three days per week starting April 10th. On July 10th, the same policy goes into effect for Blizzard Entertainment employees. Staff at Activision’s King mobile division have been working a full five days out of the office since last July.

“Activision Blizzard has been returning teams to the office over the past year, and on February 13th, we updated our future-of-work plan,” the spokesperson said. “In close partnership with each leadership team, we customize a plan based on what’s best for our business and our teams. We look forward to the increased real-time, in-person collaboration and opportunities this change will foster.”

Information on the company’s return-to-office plan was first shared earlier this week by @LeastMyHairIsOk, a Twitter user who says they work at Blizzard’s customer support department (via Game Developer). In a Twitter thread, they said the “majority” of Activision Blizzard employees “have no interest” in returning to the office. The worker went on to predict Activision will see a workforce drain if it moves forward with the plan. On top of ongoing worries about COVID-19, @LeastMyHairIsOk alleges the company has failed to address employee concerns about the cost of living in many of the cities where Activision has offices and studios. Specifically, they claim leadership has repeatedly denied requests from “lower earning departments” to include yearly cost-of-living adjustments as part of salary negotiations. “Our most recent meetings from last month suggest that there are no plans for this to change this year,” they added.

Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to Engadget’s questions about its salary policies.

Details on Activision’s return to office plan come amid allegations of union-busting. In January, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) withdrew a petition for a union election at Proletariat, a Blizzard support studio that’s currently working on World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. A CWA spokesperson accused studio head Seth Sivak of holding captive audience meetings that allegedly "demoralized and disempowered" pro-union workers enough that they felt the vote wouldn’t be fair.

Facebook parent company Meta reportedly plans to further reduce its headcount in the coming weeks. According to the Financial Times, work at the tech giant has slowed to a crawl while it plots a new round of job cuts. Meta is likely to announce the restructuring after it has completed staff performance reviews sometime in March. In November, the company laid off 11,000 employees or about 13 percent of its global workforce. Those cuts were the largest in Meta’s nearly 20-year history, affecting every organization within the company. Meta did not immediately to Engadget’s comment request. The Times did not report on the potential scale of the restructuring.

While Meta is far from the only company to cut staff in the past year, significantly fewer have expanded previously announced layoffs. If the reporting from The Times is accurate, Meta would find itself in the company of the likes of Amazon and Coinbase. The former first outlined plans to reduce its headcount by 10,000 employees only to later announce it was cutting closer to 18,000 jobs. Before November, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts the company could become “a slightly smaller organization” by the end of 2023.

The UK's competition authority has found that Microsoft's proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard could result in a "substantial lessening of competition in gaming consoles" and "could harm UK gamers." In a provisional finding, the Competition Markets Authority (CMA) said that Activision may need to be split up into separate businesses for the merger to proceed. 

The government said it conducted a wide-ranging probe over the last five months to determine the deal's potential impact. Noting that Microsoft already accounts for 60-70 percent of global cloud gaming services, it said that buying Activision would "reinforce this strong position" and substantially reduce Microsoft's competition in cloud gaming. That in turn could "potentially [harm] UK gamers, particularly those who cannot afford or do not want to buy an expensive gaming console or gaming PC." 

The CMA said that the deal may work if Activision Blizzard divested parts of its business. Namely, it could split out either the Activision and/or Blizzard segments, or the business that operates its biggest franchise, Call of Duty (CoD). The idea, it said, would be to leave assets "capable of competing effectively under separate ownership" with the new business.

In response, Microsoft said it has already addressed the CMA's concerns over competition. "We are committed to offering effective and easily enforceable solutions that address the CMA’s concerns," Microsoft corporate VP and deputy general counsel Rima Alaily told Engadget in a statement. "Our commitment to grant long term 100 percent equal access to Call of Duty to Sony, Nintendo, Steam and others preserves the deal’s benefits to gamers and developers and increases competition in the market."

First announced last year, the merger would allow Microsoft to add titles like Call of Duty to its already impressive suite of games. The deal ran afoul of regulators from the get-go, though, over concerns that it would block out Sony's PS5 and other consoles from key games, particularly CoD. Rival Sony vehemently opposes the deal, having called it a "game-changer that poses a threat to our industry." 

Last September, the CMA announced it was launching an anti-trust investigation into the deal. The US Federal Trade Commission has also sued to block the takeover, and the EU is set to make a decision on April 11th with a statement of objections. 

Microsoft said at the time that the CMA's concerns were misplaced and that its arguments were based on "self-serving statements by Sony." In November, it confirmed that it would support Call of Duty on PlayStation "forever" and promised to bring it to Nintendo's Switch consoles and Steam as well. 

Microsoft now has until February 22nd to address the CMA's concerns, with a final report from the regulator due April 26th. "Our job is to make sure that UK gamers are not caught in the crossfire of global deals that, over time, could damage competition and result in higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation. We have provisionally found that this may be the case here," said Martin Coleman, who chaired a panel of independent experts conducting the probe. 

PC shipments are plunging due to a tough economy and the pandemic recovery, and that's proving to be especially painful for Dell. The company is laying off about five percent of its workforce, or roughly 6,650 employees, to cope with a "challenging global economic environment." Earlier cost reduction measures like an external hiring freeze weren't enough, according to operations chief Jeff Clarke. A market that "continues to erode" requires further action, he says.

The layoffs include organizational changes and "resets," Clarke says. This includes streamlined sales and services, as well as engineering that focuses on "priority offerings." Bloombergnotes the job cuts will bring Dell's employee count to its lowest in six years, and 39,000 below what it had at the start of the pandemic in January 2020.

Dell was one of the major beneficiaries of the pandemic as people rushed to buy PCs for remote work. Now that the boom is over, however, the firm's dependence on computers (approximately 55 percent of its revenue) is becoming a liability — particularly in an economic climate where purchasing power is dropping. Gartner and IDC both estimate that Dell's shipments plunged 16 percent in 2022 compared to the year before, and 37 percent in the last quarter. That's one of the worst declines among major PC vendors, and only Acer fared worse in the fourth quarter with a 41 percent drop.

This is just the latest in a series of layoffs this year, and it comes just months after key rival HP said it would lay off as many as 6,000 workers. Few tech companies have avoided taking a hit in recent months, and even relatively successful brands like Apple are still grappling with falling sales. Simply speaking, Dell might only recover once the industry as a whole has turned a corner.

Activision Blizzard will pay $35 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission that it “failed to maintain disclosure controls and procedures to ensure that the company could assess whether its disclosures pertaining to its workforce were adequate.” The settlement also resolves charges that Activision Blizzard violated whistleblower protection regulations. The company is settling the charges without admitting to or denying them.

"The SEC’s order finds that Activision Blizzard failed to implement necessary controls to collect and review employee complaints about workplace misconduct, which left it without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors,” SEC Denver regional office director Jason Burt said in a statement. 

The SEC claims that, between 2018 and 2021, the company “lacked controls and procedures among its separate business units to collect and analyze employee complaints of workplace misconduct." Because of that, Activision Blizzard higher ups didn’t have the information they needed to fully comprehend the substance and number of workplace misconduct complaints, according to the order. Nor did management review whether there were any material issues that would have warranted public disclosure, the SEC found.

In addition, the SEC determined that the company violated a whistleblower protection rule as a result of separation agreements it carried out between 2016 and 2021. Activision Blizzard allegedly required former workers to provide it with notice if the SEC contacted them for information. "Taking action to impede former employees from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation is not only bad corporate governance, it is illegal,” Burt, one of the supervisors of the investigation, said.

"We are pleased to have amicably resolved this matter. As the order recognizes, we have enhanced our disclosure processes with regard to workplace reporting and updated our separation contract language," an Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. "We did so as part of our continuing commitment to operational excellence and transparency. Activision Blizzard is confident in its workplace disclosures.”

The agency started investigating Activision Blizzard over these issues by September 2021, according to reports at the time. Two months earlier, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) sued the company over allegations of systemic gender discrimination and widespread sexual harassment.

The SEC probe related to how Activision Blizzard managed complaints over such incidents. It says that the company changed its processes for handling complaints between 2020 and last year to make sure that it documented the complaints more thoroughly and better communicated them to its senior management and legal team. Last June, Activision Blizzard agreed to release an annual report that discloses how the company handles sexual harassment and gender discrimination complaints, and what it's doing to prevent such incidents.

In January 2022, Microsoft said it planned to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The Federal Trade Commission has sued to block the takeover bid. Regulators in the UK and European Union are also scrutinizing the pending merger.