
Meta Will Only Make Limited Changes to Pay-or-consent Model
Meta Platforms will only make limited changes to its pay-or-consent model rolled out in November 2024 and EU antitrust regulators cannot verify for now if the changes are sufficient to comply with an EU antitrust order, the European Commission said on Friday.
"With this in mind, we will consider the next steps, including recalling that continuous non-compliance could entail the application of periodic penalty payments running as of 27 June 2025, as indicated in the non-compliance decision," a Commission spokesperson said in an email.
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Al Arabiya
26 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
UAE fund buys $100 million of Trump's World Liberty tokens
A United Arab Emirates-based fund has bought $100 million worth of digital tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture of US President Donald Trump's family, becoming its largest publicly known investor. Aqua 1 Foundation said in a statement on Thursday its purchase of the tokens, known as $WLFI, sought to speed up the creation of a 'blockchain-powered financial ecosystem' with stablecoins and tokenized traditional assets at its heart. A spokesperson for World Liberty confirmed the investment to Reuters. A so-called governance token, $WLFI cannot be traded but gives holders the right to vote on changes to the business' underlying code. World Liberty said this week it was 'working behind the scenes' to make the token transferable. 'WLFI and Aqua 1 will jointly identify and nurture high-potential blockchain projects together,' Aqua 1 founding partner Dave Lee said in the statement. The fund's investment and compliance teams would help World Liberty expand in South America, Europe and Asia, it added. Despite its investment, Aqua 1 maintains a minimal online presence. Its X account has only three posts and approximately 1,120 followers while its website was created on May 28, according to data from two web domain trackers. World Liberty also plans to support the launch of a separate Aqua 1 fund aimed at boosting the 'digital economy transformation' in the Middle East through blockchain and artificial intelligence, the statement said. Aqua 1 did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the World Liberty spokesperson had no further immediate comment. Launched two months before the 2024 US presidential election by Trump and his business partners, World Liberty has yielded hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Republican president's family business. World Liberty has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers and government ethics watchdogs over potential conflicts of interest. The Trump Organization has said the president's investments, assets and business interests are held in a trust managed by his children. World Liberty aims to open access to financial services via digital tokens, without intermediaries such as banks. It has launched a stablecoin called USD1 that was bolstered in May when an Abu Dhabi investment firm chose it for a $2 billion investment in giant crypto exchange Binance.


Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Global markets: Shares rise on China-US trade hopes, dollar on the back foot
PARIS: Global shares rallied on Friday, helped by signs of progress in US-China trade talks, while the dollar held close to its lowest levels in more than three years. World stock markets have rallied to record highs this week, as traders took confidence from a ceasefire between Iran and Israel and markets stepped up bets for US rate cuts. A trade agreement between the US and China on Thursday on how to expedite rare earth shipments to the US was also seen by markets as a positive sign, amid efforts to end the tariff war between the world's two biggest economies. Asian shares hit their highest in more than three years in early trading, and US stock futures pointed to a firm start for Wall Street shares. The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.8 percent on the day, set for a 1.1 percent weekly gain — its best week since mid-May. London's FTSE 100 was up 0.5 percent and Germany's DAX gained 0.6 percent. The MSCI World Equity Index touched a fresh record high and was set for a weekly gain of 2.8 percent. The S&P 500 index is up just 4.4 percent this year overall, following a volatile first half of the year, dominated by US President Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariff announcement on April 2, which sent stocks plunging. 'What we are having right now is potentially some optimism about some trade deals,' said Vasileios Gkionakis, senior economist and strategist at Aviva Investors. 'We have ... come from quite low levels in the aftermath of the Liberation Day in April. To a certain extent we have also had some mini-selloff on the back of the events in the Middle East, and in that sense we're rebounding.' Trump has set July 9 as the deadline for the EU and other countries to reach a deal to reduce tariffs. Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management said that in the near-term, the firm saw greater upside potential in US and emerging markets than in Europe. Dollar drop The dollar remained on the backfoot, hovering near its lowest level in 3-1/2 years against the euro and sterling. The dollar index was down a touch on the day at 97.269 , holding near its lowest in more than three years. The euro was at $1.1708, getting a lift after data showed French consumer prices rose more than expected in June. It held near multi-year peaks hit a day earlier. 'We see the US dollar as unattractive,' said Haefele at UBS Wealth Management. Markets are focused on US monetary policy, as traders weigh up the possibility of Trump announcing a new, more dovish chair of the Federal Reserve. Traders have stepped up their bets on US rate cuts, and are now pricing in 64 basis points (bps) of easing this year versus 46 bps expected on Friday. The dollar is having its worst start to a year since the era of free-floating currencies began in the early 1970s. 'I don't think it's just the repricing of the Fed, I think there is a broader issue here of some tarnishing of US exceptionalism,' Aviva Investors' Gkionakis said. Core PCE price data, the US central bank's preferred measure of inflation, is due later in the session. German 30-year government bond yields were on track for their biggest weekly increase in nearly four months after rising this week on expectations of increased borrowing by Germany's government.


Al Arabiya
3 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Apple Revamps EU App Store Terms to Avert More Fines
Apple has revamped its app store policies in the European Union with hopes of fending off escalating fines under the 27-nation bloc's digital competition regulations. It's a last-minute bid by the iPhone maker to avoid further charges following a 500 million euro penalty in April. The bloc's executive Commission punished Apple for preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store and gave it a 60-day deadline, which expired Thursday, to avoid additional periodic fines. The changes made by Apple will make it easier for app makers to point users to better deals on digital products and options to pay for them outside of Apple's own App Store, including other websites, apps, or alternative app stores. The California company is also rolling out a two-tier system of fees to accommodate app developers that want to use alternative payments. 'The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store,' Apple said in a statement. 'We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal.' The commission noted Apple's announcement and will now assess these new business terms for DMA compliance, referring to the EU's Digital Markets Act. The rulebook was designed to rein in the power of big tech companies under threat of hefty fines worth up to 10 percent of a company's global annual revenue. Among the DMA's provisions are requirements that developers inform customers of cheaper purchasing options and direct them to those offers. Apple's restrictions preventing developers from steering users to outside payment channels had been fiercely opposed by some companies. It's the reason, for example, Spotify removed the in-app payment option to avoid having to pay a commission of up to 30 percent on digital subscriptions bought through iOS.