4/09/2025

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | SEP 4, 2025

17

Google keeps Chrome and Apple deal

Economists back Fed governor as US president attempts ouster WASHINGTON: Nearly 600 economists have signed an open letter expressing support for Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and US central bank independence, as Cook battles President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her. “Good economic policy requires credible monetary institutions,” said the letter, whose 593 signatories as of Tuesday include Nobel laureates and former US government officials. “Credible monetary institutions, in turn, require the independence of the Federal Reserve,” the letter added. The support came after Trump said on his Truth Social platform last week that he was immediately removing Cook over claims of mortgage fraud. Cook, the first black woman to serve on the Fed’s board, is challenging her ouster in court. On Tuesday, her lawyers pushed back on Trump’s justification in firing her and argued in a filing that she was not given a chance to meaningfully contest allegations against her. The open letter signed by economists noted that: “Recent public statements about Governor Cook – including threats of removal and a claim that she has been fired – have arrived alongside unproven accusations.” “This approach threatens the fundamental principle of central bank independence,” the letter cautioned. As of Tuesday, signatories included Nobel laureates Claudia Goldin, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Romer. – AFP “The money flowing into this space, and how quickly it has arrived, is astonishing,” Mehta wrote, saying AI companies are already better placed to compete with Google than any search engine developer has been in decades. Deepak Mathivanan, an analyst for Cantor Fitzgerald, said the data-sharing requirements pose a competitive risk to Google but not right away. “It will take a longer period of time for consumers to also embrace these new experiences,” he said. US antitrust enforcers are considering their next steps, assistant attorney-general Gail Slater said on X. Google said in a blog post it was worried data sharing “will impact our users and their privacy, and we’re reviewing the decision closely”. Google has said previously that it plans to file an appeal, which means it could take years before the company is required to act on the ruling. The case is likely to end up in the Supreme Court. “Judge Mehta is aware that the Supreme Court is the likely final destination for the case, and he has chosen remedies that stand a good chance of acceptance by the Court,” said William Kovacic, director of the competition law centre at George Washington University. The ruling was also a relief for Apple and other device and Web browser makers, whom Mehta said can continue to receive advertising revenue-sharing payments from Google for searches on their devices. Google pays Apple US$20 billion (RM84.5 billion) annually, Morgan Stanley analysts said last year. Banning the payments is even less necessary amid the rise of AI, Mehta wrote, where products such as ChatGPT “pose a threat to the primacy of traditional internet search”. – Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO: Google will not have to sell its Chrome browser, a judge in Washington said on Tuesday, handing a rare win to Big Tech in its battle with US antitrust enforcers, but ordering Google to share data with rivals to open up competition in online search. Google parent Alphabet’s shares were up 7.2% in extended trading on Tuesday as investors cheered the judge’s ruling, which also allows Google to keep making lucrative payments to Apple that antitrust enforcers said froze out search rivals. Apple shares rose 3%. US district judge Amit Mehta also ruled Google could keep its Android operating system, which together with Chrome help drive Google’s market-dominating online advertising business. The ruling results from a five-year legal battle between one of the world’s most profitable companies and the US, where antitrust regulators and lawmakers have long questioned Big Tech’s market domination. Mehta ruled last year that Google holds an illegal monopoly in online search and related advertising. But the judge approached the job of imposing remedies on Google with “humility”, he wrote, pointing to competition created by artificial intelligence companies since the case began. “Here the court is asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future. Not exactly a judge’s forte,” Mehta wrote. While sharing data with competitors will strengthen rivals to Google’s advertising business, not having to sell off Chrome or Android removes a major concern for o But judge orders tech giant to share data with rivals

The logo of Google is seen outside Google Bay View facilities during the Made by Google event in Mountain View, California. – REUTERSPIC

are already eroding Google’s dominance. If allowed to access the data Google is required to share, AI companies could bolster their development of chatbots and, in some cases, AI search engines and web browsers.

investors who view them as key pieces to Google’s overall business. Google faces a major threat from increasingly popular AI tools including OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot, which

ChatGPT to get parental controls after teen’s death PARIS: American artificial intelligence firm OpenAI said on Tuesday it would add parental controls to its chatbot ChatGPT, a week after an American couple said the system encouraged their teenage son to kill himself. had tied, confirming it “could potentially suspend a human”. Adam was found dead hours later, having used the same method. measures that could have been implemented,” she added. “It’s yet to be seen whether they will do what they say they will do and how effective that will be overall.”

“When a person is using ChatGPT it really feels like they’re chatting with something on the other end,” said attorney Melodi Dincer of The Tech Justice Law Project, which helped prepare the legal complaint. “These are the same features that could lead someone like Adam, over time, to start sharing more and more about their personal lives, and ultimately, to start seeking advice and counsel from this product that basically seems to have all the answers,” Dincer said. Product design features set the scene for users to slot a chatbot into trusted roles like friend, therapist or doctor, she said. Dincer said the OpenAI blog post announcing parental controls and other safety measures seemed“generic”and lacking in detail. “It’s really the bare minimum, and it definitely suggests that there were a lot of (simple) safety

The Raines’ case was just the latest in a string that have surfaced in recent months of people being encouraged in delusional or harmful trains of thought by AI chatbots – prompting OpenAI to say it would reduce models’ “sycophancy” towards users. “We continue to improve how our models recognise and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress,” OpenAI said on Tuesday. The company said it had further plans to improve the safety of its chatbots over the coming three months, including redirecting “some sensitive conversations ... to a reasoning model” that puts more computing power into generating a response. “Our testing shows that reasoning models more consistently follow and apply safety guidelines,” OpenAI said. – AFP

“Within the next month, parents will be able to ... link their account with their teen’s account” and “control how ChatGPT responds to their teen with age-appropriate model behaviour rules”, the generative AI company said in a blog post. Parents will also receive notifications from ChatGPT “when the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress”, OpenAI added. Matthew and Maria Raine argue in a lawsuit filed last week in a California state court that ChatGPT cultivated an intimate relationship with their son Adam over several months in 2024 and 2025 before he took his own life. The lawsuit alleges that in their final conversation on April 11, 2025, ChatGPT helped 16-year-old Adam steal vodka from his parents and provided technical analysis of a noose he

Trump to ask Supreme Court for ‘expedited ruling’ in tariff appeal WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he plans to seek a swift ruling from the Supreme Court as his administration pushes to overturn a court decision that found many of his tariffs illegal. Circuit, in a 7-4 ruling on Friday, had affirmed a lower court’s finding that Trump exceeded his authority in tapping emergency economic powers to impose wide-ranging duties. Tuesday as uncertainty surrounding the fate of Trump’s duties dragged on.

Since returning to the presidency, Trump has invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose“reciprocal”tariffs on almost all US trading partners, with a 10% baseline level and higher rates for dozens of economies including the European Union and Japan. Friday’s ruling did not, however, impact sector-specific tariffs like those on steel, aluminum and autos, which were rolled out under different authorities. – AFP

But the judges allowed these levies to stay in place through mid-October, giving Trump time to take the fight to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, Trump claimed that the stock market was “down because of that”. “The stock market needs the tariffs. They want the tariffs,” he said. Wall Street’s major indexes retreated on

“We’re going to the Supreme Court, we think tomorrow, because we need an early decision,” he told reporters. Trump said he would ask for an “expedited ruling”, warning that “if you took away tariffs, we could end up being a third-world country”. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal