Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Italy’s Antitrust Agency Launches Investigation Into Google And Alphabet
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
The Italian Antitrust Agency announced this Thursday a new investigation against Google and Alphabet—its parent company— regarding the use of citizens’ personal data across its services and platforms, and allegedly unfair commercial practices.
“The request for consent that Google submits to its users to the linking of the services offered may constitute a misleading and aggressive commercial practice,” states the document shared by the Italian agency.
Italy’s regulators consider Google’s consent message to be “incomplete and misleading” and that users may opt out if they had more information regarding the data collection and linking across platforms in the disclosure message.
According to PCMag , Google’s services—Chrome, YouTube, Google Play, and others— have been split after the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) in March, and users in the European Union must opt-in to link all services.
Google has been giving users a consent message to link all platforms with simple and concise information and a quick text regarding ads, stating that linking all platforms will help ”measure and improve the delivery of ads.”
Users have previously discussed on Reddit the pop-up message they have been getting from Google to link accounts and share different opinions. “A bit embarrassing. I first read it now and just accepted it when I got the prompt,” said one user. “To play devil’s advocate, it makes great sense to link the Google service to many people. I think providing the option for people who care to opt out is what really matters,” added another.
The Italian agency will investigate the case in the coming days. According to Reuters , under Italian laws, Google could be facing fines that range from 5,000 to 10 million euros for a breach of consumer’s rights. “We will analyze the details of this case and will work cooperatively with the authority,” said a spokesperson from Google in a recent statement.
Spotify Launches ‘Livi,’ the Spanish-Speaking AI DJ
- Written by Shipra Sanganeria Cybersecurity & Tech Writer
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
Spotify this week announced the launch of a new Spanish-speaking version of its AI DJ, more than a year after debuting its English-speaking AI-powered radio feature.
Dubbed “Livi,” the Spanish-speaking DJ’s voice is also based on a real person, similar to the first AI voice model, “X,” which was based on Spotify’s Head of Cultural Partnerships, Xavier “X” Jernigan.
According to the popular streaming service, Olivia “Livi” Quiroz Roa, a senior music editor at Spotify, was chosen as the voice for this feature because listeners worldwide found her voice to be the most relatable and engaging during beta testing.
Spotify’s generative AI radio feature, developed with technologies from OpenAI and its AI voice platform Sonatic , combines personalization technology, generative AI, and an AI voice to offer personalized music recommendations with radio-style commentary that changes based on user activity.
Spotify’s AI DJ Success Drives Expansion into Spanish Market
When launching this AI-powered feature, the company anticipated that users would spend more time on its platform. Internal research has confirmed this expectation, “We observe an increase in listenership the week after a user first engages with the DJ compared to the week before,” according to the announcement.
Given that Spanish is the second largest language group globally and with millions of Spanish-speaking listeners on Spotify, it made sense for the company to explore the Spanish language following English. According to the company’s announcement, after launching the English-speaking DJ feature, many Spanish-speaking users took to social media (resulting in over a 215% increase in social conversation) to inquire about a Spanish-language DJ.
