An anonymous reader shares a report: The UK's Online Safety Bill, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that aims to make the country "the safest place in the world to be online" received royal assent today and became law. The bill has been years in the making and attempts to introduce new obligations for how tech firms should design, operate, and moderate their platforms. Specific harms the bill aims to address include underage access to online pornography, "anonymous trolls," scam ads, the nonconsensual sharing of intimate deepfakes, and the spread of child sexual abuse material and terrorism-related content.

Although it's now law, online platforms will not need to immediately comply with all of their duties under the bill, which is now known as the Online Safety Act. UK telecoms regulator Ofcom, which is in charge of enforcing the rules, plans to publish its codes of practice in three phases. The first covers how platforms will have to respond to illegal content like terrorism and child sexual abuse material, and a consultation with proposals on how to handle these duties is due to be published on November 9th.

The chief executive of Bloomsbury Publishing has warned of the threat of artificial intelligence to the publishing industry, saying tech groups are already using the work of authors to train up generative AI programmes. From a report: Nigel Newton, who signed Harry Potter author JK Rowling to Bloomsbury in the 1990s, also said ministers needed to act urgently to address competition concerns between large US tech groups and the publishing industry given their increasing market dominance in selling books across the world. The warning came as Bloomsbury reported its highest-ever first-half results on the back of the boom in fantasy novels, leading the publisher to boost its interim dividend. The group said revenues grew 11 per cent to $165.7mn, sending profits 11 per cent higher at $21.4mn, for the six months to August 31.

Newton pointed to the "huge" growth in fantasy novels, with sales of books by Sarah J Maas and Samantha Shannon growing 79 per cent and 169 per cent respectively in the period and demand for Harry Potter books, 26 years after publication, remaining strong. The next Maas book, scheduled for January, has already received "staggering" pre-orders of 750,000 copies for the hardback edition, he said, underscoring the resurgence of the book-selling industry. The group's consumer division will also publish new books in the expanding Harry Potter franchise -- such as a new Wizarding Almanac this autumn.

Jameson Dow reports via Electrek: As the latest step in the saga of recalled Chevy Bolts, GM is offering owners of '20-'22 Bolts early payment of $1,400 of an anticipated class action settlement in exchange for installing a piece of diagnostics software that the company says will detect whether batteries require a full replacement. [...] In June, GM announced that it would stop replacing 2020-2022 Chevy Bolt Batteries and would instead verify the integrity of the battery with software over a period of 6,200 miles in which Bolt owners were only allowed to charge their batteries to 80% or ~207 of the original EPA's 259-mile range. GM replaced most batteries on '17-'19 Bolts but then ended up offering software diagnostics instead of battery replacements to many '20-'22 model year Bolts. GM says that the software will detect which batteries actually require a fix, but the software requires 6,214 miles/10,000 km worth of driving to detect these problems, during which time charging must be limited to 80%.

This left many customers aggrieved at being promised a new battery and not receiving it, and further, at needing to wait some number of months with restricted charging before receiving a solution. Or, in the case of low-mileage customers, that 6,214 miles might even take years -- which brings up a conflict with GM's insistence that the diagnostic period be finished by March 31, 2025, in order to qualify owners for an extended warranty for a replaced battery pack. Now, GM is trying to sweeten the pot to get customers to install the "software final remedy" by offering early/upfront payment of an anticipated $1,400 class action settlement. The payment comes in the form of a Visa eRewards card that can be used for online purchases.

But you can only get this early payment if you install the "software final remedy" before December 31, 2023, and sign a legal release associated with taking the payment. If you don't, you'll have to wait for the class action to be sorted out. The compensation program only applies to owners involved in recall N212345944. If the class action settlement ends up being more than $1,400, GM says that the difference will still be paid out to owners who take advantage of this early compensation offer. As noted in The Verge's report, "[o]lder Chevy Bolt models that were made from 2017 to 2019 were initially provided 'fixes' in 2021 to keep the vehicles from catching fire, but it did not work." A different issue with the batteries appeared in 2020, "during which time at least 19 Bolts caught fire with full batteries."

Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase and author of the Network State, has announced his first Network State Conference. This is a conference for people interested in founding, funding, and finding new communities.
Topics include startup societies, network states, digital nomadism, competitive government, legalizing innovation, and building alternatives. Speakers include Glenn Greenwald, Vitalik Buterin, Anatoly Yakovenko, Garry Tan, the Winklevosses, and Tyler Cowen. See presentations by startup society founders around the world, invest in them, and search for the community that fits you.

With this and Joseon, the first legally recognized cyber state, the network state movement is beginning to get interesting.

Another anonymous reader quotes from the Joseon Official X Account's reply to Balaji's announcement:

Joseon, the first legally recognized cyber nation state, will be there.
Interestingly, Joseon dons the same grey checkmark that is for governments on its X account.

The Biden administration on Monday is expected to unveil a long-anticipated artificial intelligence executive order, marking the U.S. government's most significant attempt to date to regulate the evolving technology that has sparked fear and hype around the world. Washington Post: The administration plans to release the order two days before government leaders, top Silicon Valley executives and civil society groups gather in Britain for an international summit focused on the potential risks that AI presents to society, according to four people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private plans.

The sweeping order would leverage the U.S. government's role as a top technology customer by requiring advanced AI models to undergo assessments before they can be used by federal workers, according to three people involved in discussions about the order. The lengthy action would ease barriers to immigration for highly skilled workers, an attempt to boost the United States' technological edge. Federal government agencies -- including the Defense Department, Energy Department and intelligence agencies -- would be required to run assessments to determine how they might incorporate AI into their agencies' work, with a focus on bolstering national cyber defenses.

Cost overruns for the new Air Force One jets continue to pile on massive losses for Boeing. From a report: Boeing on Wednesday reported another $482 million in red ink on the contract to retrofit two 747 jets into the next generation of the presidential plane. Boeing has now lost more than $1 billion on each of the two jets. The company has been reporting losses on the planes for years, as CEO Dave Calhoun admitted last year that the company should never have signed the contract with the Air Force to produce the jets for $3.9 billion. Supplier costs have soared since then, and the delivery date has been continually pushed back. Boeing took $1.45 billion in losses on the planes last year, and $318 million in 2021.

"Air Force One, I'm just going to call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation. A very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn't have taken," Calhoun said in April last year when discussing $660 million of those losses reported at that time. "But we are where we are." The company said the latest loss on the program is a result of engineering changes, labor instability, as well as the resolution of negotiations with one of its suppliers. Very often higher costs on defense contracts can be passed onto US taxpayers, but under pressure from then-President Donald Trump, who was threatening to cancel the contract for the planes, Boeing agreed to a fixed price contract on the two new jets.

Mark Harris, reporting at IEEE: Expect traffic on the 101 highway in Mountain View, California, to be even worse in the days or weeks ahead, as motorists slow down to watch Google co-founder Sergey Brin's 124-meter long airship Pathfinder 1 launch into the air for the first time. IEEE Spectrum has learned that LTA Research, the company that Brin founded in 2015 to develop airships for humanitarian and cargo transport, received a special airworthiness certificate for the helium-filled airship in early September. That piece of paper allows the largest aircraft since the ill-fated Hindenburg to begin flight tests at Moffett Field, a joint civil-military airport in Silicon Valley, with immediate effect.

The certificate permits LTA to fly Pathfinder 1 within the boundaries of Moffett Field and neighboring Palo Alto airport's airspaces, at a height of up to 460 meters (1500 feet). That will let it venture out over the south San Francisco Bay, without interfering with planes flying into or out of San Jose and San Francisco International commercial airports. In a letter supporting its application for the certificate, LTA wrote: "Pathfinder 1's experimental flight test program is to demonstrate and establish the flight envelope for the airship.... LTA's test plan is tailored to include substantial indoor and outdoor ground testing, using a build-up approach to gradually increase the flight envelope." The huge airship will initially be attached to a mobile mast for outdoor ground testing, before conducting about 25 low-level flights, for a total of 50 hours' flight time.

Corinne Purtill reports via Phys.Org: Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, and killed or castrated sufferers to prevent them from passing tainted blood to a new generation. Today we know epilepsy is a disease. By and large, it's accepted that a person who causes a fatal traffic accident while in the grip of a seizure should not be charged with murder. After more than 40 years studying humans and other primates, Sapolsky has reached the conclusion that virtually all human behavior is as far beyond our conscious control as the convulsions of a seizure, the division of cells or the beating of our hearts.

This means accepting that a man who shoots into a crowd has no more control over his fate than the victims who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It means treating drunk drivers who barrel into pedestrians just like drivers who suffer a sudden heart attack and veer out of their lane. "The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over," Sapolsky said. "We've got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn't there."

Sapolsky, a MacArthur "genius" grant winner, is extremely aware that this is an out-there position. Most neuroscientists believe humans have at least some degree of free will. So do most philosophers and the vast majority of the general population. Free will is essential to how we see ourselves, fueling the satisfaction of achievement or the shame of failing to do the right thing. Saying that people have no free will is a great way to start an argument. This is partly why Sapolsky, who describes himself as "majorly averse to interpersonal conflict," put off writing his new book "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will." [...]

Analyzing human behavior through the lens of any single discipline leaves room for the possibility that people choose their actions, he says. But after a long cross-disciplinary career, he feels it's intellectually dishonest to write anything other than what he sees as the unavoidable conclusion: Free will is a myth, and the sooner we accept that, the more just our society will be. "Determined," which comes out today, builds on Sapolsky's 2017 bestseller "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst," which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a slew of other accolades. The book breaks down the neurochemical influences that contribute to human behaviors, analyzing the milliseconds to centuries preceding, say, the pulling of a trigger or the suggestive touch on an arm. "Determined" goes a step further. If it's impossible for any single neuron or any single brain to act without influence from factors beyond its control, Sapolsky argues, there can be no logical room for free will.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The Biden administration has proposed to ban all uses of trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent used in glues, other adhesives, spot removers and metal cleaners, saying exposure to even small amounts can cause cancer, damage to the central nervous system and other health effects. The proposed ban is the latest twist in a yearslong debate over whether to regulate trichloroethylene, commonly referred to as TCE. In its final weeks, the Obama administration tried to ban some uses of the chemical, only to have the Trump administration place it on an Environmental Protection Agency list for long-term consideration, a move that essentially suspended any action. Monday's proposal goes further than the Obama-era plan by prohibiting all uses of TCE.

Under the E.P.A. proposal, most uses of TCE, including those in processing commercial and consumer products, would be prohibited within one year. For other uses the agency categorized as "limited," such as use in electric vehicle batteries and the manufacturing of certain refrigerants, there would be a longer transition period and more stringent worker protections. The administration said that safer alternatives exist for most uses of TCE as a solvent. In a final evaluation this year, the E.P.A. said the chemical posed an "unreasonable risk to human health." Short-term exposure could affect a developing fetus, and high concentrations can irritate the respiratory system, the agency said. Prolonged exposure has been associated with effects in the liver, kidneys, immune system and central nervous system, it said. "This is extremely important," said Maria Doa, senior director for chemicals policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy organization. She said TCE "causes so many different harms at such low levels" that banning it would have widespread impacts. "It's a long time coming," she said.

Since disclosing a security breach of its support systems Friday, Okta has shed more than $2 billion from its market valuation "Okta shares slumped more than 11% Friday after the company said an unidentified hacking group was able to access client files through a support system," reports CNBC. "The company did not provide more details beyond a set of technical identifiers. The company's stock continued to fall in Monday trading, ultimately closing down 8.1%." From the report: Okta is a lesser-known name but forms a critical part of cybersecurity systems at major corporations. The identity management company boasts more than 18,000 customers who use its products to provide a single login point for many different platforms that a given company uses. Zoom, for example, uses Okta to give "seamless" access through a single login to the company's Google Workspace, ServiceNow, VMware and Workday platforms. Okta said it had communicated with all affected clients in Friday's announcement. At least one of those clients said it had alerted Okta about a potential breach weeks earlier. [...]

Okta has also been at the center of other higher-profile incidents. Earlier this year, for example, casino giants Caesars and MGM were both affected by hacks. Caesars was forced to pay millions in ransom to the hacking group, sources told CNBC. MGM had to shut down critical systems that the company acknowledged would have a material effect on its bottom line in an SEC filing. The direct and indirect losses from those incidents totaled over $100 million. Both those attacks targeted MGM and Caesars' Okta installations, using a sophisticated social engineering attack that went through IT help desks. Three other companies were also targeted by the hacking group, an Okta executive told Reuters.

Okta has also been a target before. A hacking group purportedly accessed numerous Okta systems in a March attempt. That group, Lapsus$, has been tied to hacking attacks at Uber and Grand Theft Auto maker Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, according to a report from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used a system called Giant Oak Search Technology (GOST) to help the agency scrutinize social media posts, determine if they are "derogatory" to the U.S., and then use that information as part of immigration enforcement, according to a new cache of documents reviewed by 404 Media. The documents peel back the curtain on a powerful system, both in a technological and a policy sense -- how information is processed and used to decide who is allowed to remain in the country and who is not.

GOST's catchphrase included in one document is "We see the people behind the data." A GOST user guide included in the documents says GOST is "capable of providing behavioral based internet search capabilities." Screenshots show analysts can search the system with identifiers such as name, address, email address, and country of citizenship. After a search, GOST provides a "ranking" from zero to 100 on what it thinks is relevant to the user's specific mission. The documents further explain that an applicant's "potentially derogatory social media can be reviewed within the interface." After clicking on a specific person, analysts can review images collected from social media or elsewhere, and give them a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." Analysts can also then review the target's social media profiles themselves too, and their "social graph," potentially showing who the system believes they are connected to.

DHS has used GOST since 2014, according to a page of the user guide. In turn, ICE has paid Giant Oak Inc., the company behind the system, in excess of $10 million since 2017, according to public procurement records. A Giant Oak and DHS contract ended in August 2022, according to the records. Records also show Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the State Department, the Air Force, and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service which is part of the U.S. Treasury have all paid for Giant Oak services over the last nearly ten years. The FOIA documents specifically discuss Giant Oak's use as part of an earlier 2016 pilot called the "HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] PATRIOT Social Media Pilot Program." For this, the program would "target potential overstay violators from particular visa issuance Posts located in countries of concern." "The government should not be using algorithms to scrutinize our social media posts and decide which of us is 'risky.' And agencies certainly shouldn't be buying this kind of black box technology in secret without any accountability. DHS needs to explain to the public how its systems determine whether someone is a 'risk' or not, and what happens to the people whose online posts are flagged by its algorithms," Patrick Toomey, Deputy Director of the ACLU's National Security Project, told 404 Media in an email. The documents come from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by both the ACLU and the ACLU of Northern California. Toomey from the ACLU then shared the documents with 404 Media.

Mac computer and iPhone maker Apple on Tuesday will announce plans to make parts, tools and documentation needed to repair its products available to independent repair shops and consumers nationwide, at fair and reasonable prices, the White House said. From a report: National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard made the announcement in remarks prepared for a White House event later Tuesday focused on the so-called "right to repair," calling on Congress to pass legislation requiring such action across the country.

The event is part of U.S. President Joe Biden's push to promote competition and crack down on so-called junk fees and other actions that increase prices for consumers. The latest effort is aimed at giving consumers more control over fixing what they own, from tractors to smart phones. Brainard said California, Colorado, New York and Minnesota had already passed right to repair laws, and 30 other states had introduced similar legislation.

Economists spent 2021 expecting inflation to prove "transitory." They spent much of 2022 underestimating its staying power. And they spent early 2023 predicting that the Federal Reserve's rate increases, meant to cure the inflation, would plunge the economy into a recession. None of those forecasts have panned out. The New York Times: Two big issues have made it difficult to forecast since 2020. The first was the coronavirus pandemic. The world had not experienced such a sweeping disease since the Spanish flu in 1918, and it was hard to anticipate how it would roil commerce and consumer behavior. The second complication came from fiscal policy. The Trump and Biden administrations poured $4.6 trillion of recovery money and stimulus into the economy in response to the pandemic. President Biden then pushed Congress to approve several laws that provided funding to encourage infrastructure investment and clean energy development. Between coronavirus lockdowns and the government's enormous response, standard economic relationships stopped serving as good guides to the future.

Take inflation. Economic models suggested that it would not take off in a lasting way as long as unemployment was high. It made sense: If a bunch of consumers were out of work or earning tepid pay gains, they would pull back if companies charged more. But those models did not count on the savings that Americans had amassed from pandemic aid and months at home. Price increases began to take off in March 2021 as ravenous demand for products like used cars and at-home exercise equipment collided with global supply shortages. Unemployment was above 6 percent, but that did not stop shoppers. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 exacerbated the situation, pushing up oil prices. And before long, the labor market had healed and wages were growing rapidly.

Meta Platforms was sued by California and a group of more than two dozen states over claims that its social-media platforms Instagram and Facebook exploit youths for profit and feed them harmful content. From a report: The suit, filed in federal court in California, adds to growing scrutiny of social media giants over how they serve their youngest users.

Demand for climate-warming fuels like coal, oil and natural gas will likely peak before 2030, evidence of the accelerating global shift to energy that doesn't emit greenhouse gasses, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s World Energy Outlook. From a report: "The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it's unstoppable. It's not a question of 'if', it's just a matter of 'how soon' -- and the sooner the better for all of us," said Fatih Birol, IEA executive director, in a statement. The agency represents countries that make up more than 80% of global energy consumption. The annual IEA report estimates that in 2030 there will be 10 times as many electric vehicles on the road worldwide and 50% of the cars sold in the United States will be electric. The agency says solar panels installed across the globe will generate more electricity at the end of the decade than the U.S. power system produces now. And the report projects that renewable energy will supply 50% of the world's electricity needs, up from about 30% now.

But the report warns the pace of the transition will have to quicken considerably in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and avoid some of the worst case scenarios in a changing climate. The IEA's outlook lays out a strategy for meeting that goal that includes tripling renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency measures and slashing methane emissions from fossil fuel operations by 75% by 2030. Methane has more than 25 times the climate-warming potential of carbon dioxide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Climate and anti-fossil fuel groups say the IEA's methane strategy should be even more aggressive.

UK ministers are poised to reject Big Tech calls for greater scope to appeal against decisions made by the country's antitrust regulator under new digital markets rules, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The government plans to use the new Digital Markets Unit within the regulator, the Competition and Market Authority, to apply extra scrutiny to companies such as Alphabet and Meta Platforms, and to curb their dominance. The division is expected to have powers to fine internet firms in a bid to protect consumers, and it may allow smaller companies to access the data held by bigger ones. It could lead to tech companies compensating media outlets for carrying news stories.

Under existing plans, challenges to DMU rulings would only cover whether the CMA followed the correct procedure when making its decisions. But tech companies have lobbied to be able to appeal decisions on a "full merits" basis that would include examining the regulator's assumptions and underlying evidence also. Ministers, however, are set to rebuff the demands of the tech companies, because they are concerned the proposals would make it harder for smaller companies to challenge their bigger rivals, according to the people, who asked not to be named because a final decision hasn't yet been made.

Paul Kunert reports via The Register: A gaggle of MPs are calling for government to put together a timetable for the replacement of millions upon millions of smart meters that will be defunct when 2G and 3G mobile networks are switched off. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) comprised of cross-party MPs penned a report to update the rollout of the smart meters, with multiple deadlines missed along the way of the $17 billion billion project. The report echoes an earlier one by the National Audit Office (NAO), which found that as of March 2023, energy companies had rolled out the devices to just 57 percent (roughly 32.4 million out of a potential install base of 57.1 million) homes and businesses. Of these devices, around 9 percent were not functioning properly.

The PAC says in its latest report: "A fifth more (an estimated seven million) will lose functionality when the 2G and 3G mobile communications networks are closed if they do not receive costly hardware upgrades (the cost of which will ultimately be borne by the billpayers)." UK comms regulator Ofcom announced last month that UK mobile operators do not intend to provide 2G and 3G mobile networks past 2033. "The switch-off will affect customers using older mobile devices and services." The PAC wants to know what the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), as well as energy regulator Ofgem, are doing to plan the smooth running of a replacement scheme.

It asks both to set out "what they will do to ensure suppliers assign more importance than at present to replacing those smart meters not functioning properly" and "a timetable for replacing the communication hub element of smart meters that will lose functionality when the 2G and 3G mobile networks are switched off." [...] The PAC also want DESNZ and Ofgem to outline "measures to ensure that suppliers use future-proofed technology -- for example, by excluding 2G or 3G connectivity -- in all new smart meter installations." And it wants the department and the energy watchdog to detail program costs to Parliament on an annual basis to inform decisions about the rollout.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Hamas' attacks against Israel on October 7 have shifted the geopolitical landscape and triggered a looming Israeli ground assault in the Gaza Strip. Now the ripple effects are reaching the cryptocurrency industry, where they've become the United States Department of the Treasury's rallying cry for a crackdown on cryptocurrency anonymity services. The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) [on October 19th] released a set of proposed rules that would designate foreign cryptocurrency "mixers" -- services that blend users' digital funds to offer more anonymity and make them harder to trace -- as money laundering tools that pose a threat to national security and would thus face new sanctions and regulations. The new rules, if adopted following a 90-day period of public comment and debate, would potentially represent the broadest restrictions imposed yet on the mixing services and could make it far harder for cryptocurrency holders to put their money through the services before cashing it out at a US cryptocurrency exchange, or even at a foreign exchange that accepts US customers.

While the proposed rules were almost certainly in the works long before October 7, the Treasury's announcement tied the push for a change in policy directly to the use of cryptocurrency by Hamas and militant groups in Gaza. "The Treasury Department is aggressively combatting illicit use of all aspects of the CVC ecosystem by terrorist groups," Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the Treasury, wrote in a statement, using the term "CVC" to mean convertible virtual currency. Adeyemo says that this includes Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group that often aligns with Hamas, which Israel blamed for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza earlier this week.

Cryptocurrency mixers have existed almost as long as Bitcoin itself. They offer to take in a user's cryptocurrency, blend it with that of other users, and return the funds so that they are harder to follow from their origin to destination on blockchains, which generally record every transaction in full public view. The Treasury's rule change would designate those cryptocurrency-mixing services -- or at least the majority of them that are based outside the US -- as a "primary money laundering concern." They would thus be considered a threat to US national security as defined by section 311 of the Patriot Act, a section of the law designed to restrict how domestic financial institutions interact with potential sources of terrorist financing. The rule change would mean that US financial services, as well foreign ones with US customers -- including cryptocurrency exchanges -- would have to go through extra record-keeping and reporting requirements for funds that have touched a foreign cryptocurrency mixer, and it might even allow the Treasury to block US exchanges from handling those funds. "We've never seen anything like this before," says Ari Redbord, the head of global policy for TRM Labs, a blockchain analysis firm. Redbord notes that the rule change isn't proposing a blanket ban on foreign mixing services, only new rules for interacting with them. "The reality, however, is that 311 actions oftentimes have a sort of name-and-shame effect, where people are just not wanting to engage with these platforms out of fear of being caught up in money laundering or other type of illicit activity."

"I think the challenge for regulators is, how do we thread the needle between stopping illicit actors from using these platforms but at the same time allow regular users to enable some degree of privacy?" Redbord added. "I think the concern is that this could very much be throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

The hangover from the bursting of the startup bubble is weighing on big U.S. university endowments, with write-downs in their growth and venture-capital investments driving a second straight year of weak returns. From a report: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported a loss of 2.9% and Duke University, a loss of 1% for the fiscal year ending June 30, while endowments at Yale and Stanford gained 1.8% and 4.4%, respectively. The median return for endowments and foundations of more than $1 billion was 5.6%, according to a preliminary estimate from Cambridge Associates.

That was well behind the overall stock market. The MSCI All Country World Index and the S&P 500 gained 17.1% and 19.6% for the period, including dividends, respectively. They were boosted by the rally in tech giants including Microsoft and Nvidia that have benefited from developments in artificial intelligence. Small endowments of less than $500 million, which typically have less exposure to private investments and more to public equities, had a median return of 8.8%, according to Cambridge. "You were at the mercy of portfolio construction," said Matt Bank of Charlotte, N.C.-based Global Endowment Management, an outsourced investment firm. "Those decisions drove your short-term results, and the specific decisions you made within categories mattered less." Exposure to China also had a negative impact on returns, several endowment chiefs said.

Companies including Nestle, Unilever, Mahindra Group and Volvo Cars are urging political leaders to agree a timeline at the upcoming U.N. climate summit to phase out fossil fuels. From a report: The 131 companies, which have nearly $1 trillion in global annual revenues, wrote in a letter published on Monday that attendees at the COP28 summit must commit to reach 100% decarbonised power systems by 2035 for richer economies, and help developing countries financially so they can ditch fossil fuels by 2040 at the latest. "Our businesses are feeling the impacts and cost of increasing extreme weather events resulting from climate change," the companies wrote in the letter, which was coordinated by the non-profit We Mean Business Coalition, which is pushing for greater climate action globally.

"To decarbonise the global energy system, we need to ramp up clean energy as fast as we phase out the use and production of fossil fuels," they wrote. The letter's 131 signatories, which include Bayer, Heineken, IKEA and Iberdrola, span a range of sectors and include multinationals and small and medium-sized businesses. Companies are increasingly committing to their own timelines for reducing their emissions, but many acknowledge that their ability to slow planet-warming CO2 emissions is contingent on faster action from governments.