European regulators have set Amazon in their sights.

Germany's competition watchdog — the Federal Cartel Office, or the Bundeskartellamt — announced on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into Amazon.

"Its double role as the largest retailer and largest marketplace has the potential to hinder other sellers on its platform," Andreas Mundt, the president of the FCO, said in a statement. "Because of the many complaints we have received we will examine whether Amazon is abusing its market position to the detriment of sellers active on its marketplace. We will scrutinize its terms of business and practices towards sellers."

In a statement to Business Insider on Thursday, Amazon said that it would not comment on ongoing investigations, but pledged to "cooperate fully with the Bundeskartellamt and continue working hard to support small and medium-sized businesses and help them grow."

Germany's watchdog isn't the first to take notice of this aspect of Amazon's business and its potential anti-trust implications. The European Commission, led by Margrethe Vestager, announced in September that it had launched a preliminary investigation to see whether Amazon's dual role has meant that its use of data has been in violation of European competition law.

"The question here is about the data," Vestager said in response to a journalist's question at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, at the time.

The commission sent questionnaires to hundreds of third-party retailers this summer, it said.

Read more: Amazon is getting slammed for a confusing email telling customers they don't need to change their password after a data leak

Across the Atlantic, US Sen. Elizabeth Warren has echoed the European regulators' sentiment.

Speaking with The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin in September, Warren centered her criticism on the dual role Amazon plays.

The problem, Warren says, is that Amazon gets the data from sales on its platform and doesn't necessarily share it. With that information, Amazon could then potentially create its own market conditions and develop a private-label brand.

"Amazon gets this special information advantage that it [can] then exploit to wipe out [a business]," Warren told Sorkin. "That is a serious problem."

Warren said that, ultimately, Amazon should not be in both businesses.

"You got to pick one business or the other, baby," Warren said. "You want to be a competitor, be a competitor. That's great. You want to be the platform provider, that is a different function. If you're getting a huge competitive advantage from being a platform provider because of all this information you keep scraping off, then we no longer have competition going on."

Amazon's marketplace has become core to its retail growth. Marketplace has grown to account for more than half of the website's sales. Its growth is outpacing Amazon's direct sales of merchandise. It has also more closely integrated offerings by third parties into its own services, which Amazon collects fees on, so customers often can't tell the difference when shopping the site.

That's a powerful tool for Amazon, as it drastically increases the number of items available for purchase on the website. Should regulation not let Amazon sell products that compete with those sold by third parties on its own website, Amazon's future retail growth could be impacted.

Silicon Valley is a vital catalyst for America's economic edge. It is the global center of the digital revolution shaping the 21st century, and its location in the US established our country as the leader of that revolution. The country reaps the economic benefits of having some of the largest and most innovative technology companies and research centers housed within our borders.

But back in the late 1970s, the center of technology revolution wasn't guaranteed to occur in the US.

At the time, top computer science talent was scattered across the globe, and the industry needed a place where the best and brightest could gather to collaborate and innovate. It could have been anywhere — but Silicon Valley ended up in America.

Why?

The answer, in large part, is because the US opened its doors to skilled foreign workers.

After 1965, when the US repealed the Immigration Act of 1924 — which limited the number of people who could emigrate from each country — America's visa system allowed a remarkable amount of global talent to gather within our borders, including in burgeoning tech centers like Santa Clara County in California.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

As a result, the US became a destination for global science, math, and computer science talent during the second half of the 20th century.

A significant amount of these talented workers traveled to our shores from India. Between 1973 and 1977, more than 60 percent of the India Institute of Technology in Mumbai's top quartile of electrical engineering graduates moved to the United States, which helped to revolutionize the landscape of the American technology industry. Many of these graduates accepted jobs in the region we now know as Silicon Valley.

When President George H.W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, a new type of visa was born: the H-1B. The new law institutionalized a program that allows employers to hire highly skilled foreign workers on a temporary basis for roles that require specialized knowledge. As a result, US companies were able to recruited from around the globe.

Read more: Silicon Valley's immigrant tech workers are scared of buying homes after Trump's travel ban

During my time as a US senator, I was proud to support legislation that expanded the annual cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 195,000 to meet the explosive growth of the US information technology sector, growth that ensured America would continue global technology leadership.

Silicon Valley and other high tech corridors — from Austin to Boston and various areas around the country — continue to rely on a symbiotic relationship between American and skilled foreign workers that enhances the contemporary tech scene.

A 2017 report by The Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project found 57% of the San Francisco Bay's tech workforce was born outside of the US. In a tight labor market with low unemployment, these workers help fill a critical worker shortage that has allowed US firms to remain strong and created thousands of jobs for US workers.

This role becomes particularly crucial in light of the recent White House Council of Economic Advisers' report highlighting the growing skills gap facing American companies.

And America's business leaders recognize how invaluable these workers are to their companies. Just last month, leaders of 59 US companies, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, signed onto a letter coordinated by the Business Roundtable and addressed to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, arguing that "As the federal government undertakes its legitimate review of immigration rules, it must avoid making changes that disrupt the lives of thousands of law-abiding and skilled employees, and that inflict substantial harm on US competitiveness."

Read more: Highly skilled foreign workers are still flowing into the US — and in some cities, they make more than $100,000 yearly

In stating his objectives, President Trump said in Phoenix in 2016 that "it is our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us". But the regulations being promulgated by government agencies, like US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), are not consistent with these objectives and could discourage high-skilled workers from applying to work legally in the US or cause them to flee to other countries.

As we continue to debate the best ways to reform our immigration system, we must not sacrifice our ability to attract the most talented people on the planet to contribute to our nation's prosperity and work within our borders. Without their efforts, we would impair the factors that have made our economy so formidable on a global stage for more than a century.

Spencer Abraham served as a US Senator from Michigan from 1995 to 2001, and was Secretary of Energy for George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.

Lewis Hilsenteger is always showing off the latest and coolest technologies over on his YouTube channel, Unbox Therapy.

But Hilsenteger may have outdone himself with this particular setup, which he filmed earlier this year. He rigged up a $20,000 gaming computer to probably the craziest-looking game chair we've ever seen, added three monitors, and designated snack areas to create the "ultimate gaming PC setup." He even threw in a PlayStation 4 Pro, just for good measure.

Check it out.

Black Friday isn't just for doorbusters and deals — a lot of people download apps, too.

That's according to a new analysis from Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm, which found that US consumers set a new single-day revenue record for the App Store, the software distribution platform for iPhones and iPads.

Apple grossed $52 million that day — of which about 70% go to the app makers, and 30% goes to Apple.

That's nearly 32% over last year's Black Friday, and even tops last year's Christmas sales.

From the analysis:

U.S. consumers spent an estimated $52 million on Apple's App Store this Black Friday, setting a new single-day revenue record for the store. This marked an increase in spending of 31.6 percent over last year's Black Friday, when gross revenue on the store hit an estimated $39.5 million, and 31 percent more than Christmas 2017's $39.8 million spent, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data shows.

What drove the sales? According to Sensor Tower, a lot of it was games. Many games offered discounts on in-app purchases and other bundles, which drew players in.

But other app categories saw big gains, too, including Food & Drink and Sports, according to Sensor Tower.

Apple doesn't disclose App Store sales, even though it is believed to be the biggest chunk of its online services business, which analysts and investors hope can keep Apple revenue and profits high as the company seems to be facing slowing or shrinking iPhone and hardware sales.

However, in early January, Apple traditionally releases a number of data points related to its App Store business. Last year, Apple said that users worldwide had made $300 million in purchases on New Year's Day in 2018, for example, and that iOS developers had earned $86 billion since the App Store launched in 2008.

Now tell us about your holiday shopping!

As the Black Friday dust settles, it is time to see how the kickoff to this year's holiday shopping season measured up.

According to the National Retail Federation, 41.4 million people shopped only online from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. That's more than six million more than the 34.7 million who shopped exclusively in stores.

That led to new online sales records, with major shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday seeing double-digit sales growth over 2017 figures.

Still, the growth wasn't enough for the American holiday shopping season to catch up with Alibaba's Singles Day.

Read more: Alibaba just had the biggest online shopping day of all time

The day of e-commerce deals on November 11, or 11/11, generated more than $4.68 billion in sales in its first 10 minutes. Twenty minutes in, sales had surpassed $6.5 billion — exceeding total Black Friday online sales, according to Adobe Analytics data.

Skye Gould/BI Graphics

Here's how online sales in the kickoff to holiday shopping have measured up against Singles Day:

And, a few more sales comparisons:

Alibaba is determined to continue its e-commerce dominance, pushing for growth to keep Singles Day in the top spot for years to come.

"Everywhere I go, which is pretty much everywhere in the world, there are not very many people who do not know about 11/11," Alibaba president Michael Evans told Business Insider on Singles Day in Shanghai.

"Many people ask the question — how can we participate next year? People are very interested, I think partly because they've heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and they think that's quite big."

He continued: "They've heard of Amazon Prime Day. But, we sold as much in five minutes as Amazon sold in an entire Prime Day."

SAP's $8 billion acquisition of Qualtrics, just days before its planned IPO, reveals a new trend, according to analysts at Needham — acquirers are willing to spend big bucks for the best companies out there.

Companies are prioritizing "higher quality" companies over "a more blended approach, acquiring both high-growth industry leaders and more opportunistic value-orientated targets," wrote Needham analyst Scott Berg in a note to clients published Tuesday.

"While the list of public software company acquisitions has been relatively short," Berg wrote, "the aggregate valuations have been at a premium level that we consider to be at the upper end of historical ranges."

Now with the stock market in a correction, even high-growth and otherwise well-placed public software companies suddenly look like they could be for sale — which is great news for large acquirers.

Neeham chose these five companies based off the criterea that they all have "consistent growth with strong ownership of their respective end markets." It also excluded recently-public companies like Anaplan and Zuroa since leadership has indicated that they wish to stay independent, as well as larger SaaS companies like Salesforce, which few acquirers could afford.

Here's who Needham thinks are the most attractive software companies for potential acquirers.

Read more: Insiders explain why BlackBerry's $1.4 billion acquisition of Cylance could be the last endpoint security deal of its size

A "secret sister" gift exchange circulating on Facebook promises that participants will receive up to 36 gifts in exchange for just one of their own.

It sounds too good to be true, and (unsurprisingly!) it is. And it's not just a dubious idea — it's actually an illegal pyramid scheme.

Having circulated in some form since at least 2015, it has had a resurgence in the run-up to the holiday season, prompting at least one local police force to issue a fresh warning. So how does it work?

It spreads via a Facebook post advertising the exchange (36 gifts in exchange for one!) and asking six people to join in. When they do, they are sent a message asking them to: 1) Send a gift worth $10 to the "secret sister #1," the first name on a list they are given, 2) Move the person currently in second place on that list — the person who made the post they responded to — into first place, 3) Put their own name in second place. 4) Repost the public Facebook post to their profile and recruit six more people to do the same thing they just did.

An example of a recent "secret sister" post on Facebook advertising for participants. Facebook

If there's 100% recruitment and participation, then the poster receives 36 gifts, as each of the six people the poster recruited will recruit six more people who send them gifts.

But it works only up to a point. It's a pyramid scheme, reliant on a constant inflow of new members to pay old members their promised gifts. This means the people at the bottom have to lose out eventually, as there's only a finite number of people in the world.

As such, it's not just inadvisable to participate; it's outright illegal.

Earlier this week, the Wauwatosa Police Department in Wisconsin posted a warning on Facebook about the scam and linked to an article from the US Better Business Bureau about the problems with "secret sister" schemes.

"The U.S. Postal Inspection Services says that gift exchanges are illegal gambling and that participants could be subject to penalties for mail fraud," the Better Business Bureau wrote.

"Pyramid schemes are illegal, either by mail or on social media, if money or other items of value are requested with assurance of a sizeable return for those who participate."

A Facebook representative did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

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A new report from the Associated Press indicates that electric-car makers, including Tesla, transmit data from its owner-operated vehicles to the Chinese government.

More than 200 manufacturers like Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Mitsubishi and US-listed electric vehicle startup Nio, tell the Chinese government where you are with positioning data alongside a whole batch of other data point, the Associated Press has found.

AP reports, that the data is sent to "government-backed monitoring centers," and largely happens without drivers being aware that their movements and other information in being tracked.

While the tracking of electric cars adds another layer to China's growing arsenal of social surveillance tools, the information is publicly available, according to the AP.

"Electric vehicles in China transmit data from the car's sensors back to the manufacturer. From there, automakers send at least 61 data points, including location and details about battery and engine function to local centers," The AP reports.

Thye decision by the Chinese government to obligate electric vehicle makers to provide such data points for centralized and undefined uses stands in contrast to other major car markets like the United States, Japan, and Europe which are generally not in the business of harvesting real-time location data from privately-owned vehicles.

Modern cars also generally gather data on the car's internal systems and track information to better understand driving habits and transmit that information back to the car manufacturer. But the notion of sending data to the government would generally invite significant privacy concerns.

Not so in the China of today under President Xi Jinping, who heads up a special all-powerful cyber unit that sits above every other committee and government department overseeing anything cyber-side, from propaganda, surveillance to internet censorship.

In February 2014, Xi created for himself a new title and position as head of the newly created Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission (中央网络安全和信息化委员会 or CCAF), sitting above even the central propaganda department or the State Internet Information Office (国家互联网信息办公室) assuming personal control of all aspects of China's cyber-future.

Read more: Elon Musk said Tesla owners will be able to use their phones to summon their vehicles from 'across the continent' in a few years

In April, Xi made a surprise and somewhat historic visit to a Cyberspace conference in Beijing, detailing his vision of what cyberspace governance with Chinese characteristics looks like.

"China has achieved historic progress in the development of cybersecurity and informatization, formed a model of cyberspace governance with Chinese characteristics, and developed a strategic thought to advance the country's strength in this regard," the Xinhua News Agency reported Xi as saying.

Xi has been very big on enhancing military-civilian integration across "cybersecurity and informatization," calling it a "key and cutting-edge frontier field with the greatest vitality and potential in the drive for integration," China Daily reported in April.

Whatever that means, it is clear that Xi intends for the Chinese Communist Party to form the center of a military approach to public governance from where his CCAF can literally direct the traffic.

China is building and applying facial-recognition technology; tech giants monitoring their own customers; forcing citizens to download apps that monitor their content; requiring Chinese tech companies, like Alibaba, to share data; having law enforcement officers wear special glasses to identify people in crowded places, like streets and train stations, and the list goes on.

Analysts have suggested Xi is building the world's first digital autocracy beginning with a digitally-enhanced social-credit system that scrutinizes every action and decision, good or bad, and collates a potentially limitless variety of data to provide each citizen with a color-coded social rank that describes who you are in the eyes of the CCP.

"You're learning a lot about people's day-to-day activities and that becomes part of what I call ubiquitous surveillance, where pretty much everything that you do is being recorded and saved and potentially can be used in order to affect your life and your freedom," Michael Chertoff, who was Homeland Security secretary under President George W. Bush told AP.

Chinese officials say the electric-car data is only used to improve public safety, facilitate industrial development and infrastructure planning, and to prevent fraud in subsidy programs, the AP reports.

However, while sales of alternatively fueled cars made up 2.6% of China's total car sales last year, China has made it very clear the creation and distribution of new energy vehicles is national priority.

According to Bloomberg China is leading the shift to electric vehicles.

Every second electric car sold today goes to China and Bloomberg expects this to continue through 2025, when 19% of all passenger vehicle sales will be in China. That will coincide nicely with the vision of local policymakers that AP says are targeting 20% of all car sales by the same year.

EV sales in China hit 95,000 in May 2018, up 128% on May 2017.

From next year, AP says that all automakers in China must meet production minimums for new energy vehicles, part of Beijing's aggressive effort to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources and place itself at the forefront of the alternative energies industries.

These government regulations on sharing data from next-generation connected cars sets a worrying precedent, AP observes, and if China can hit its new car targets in 2025, then the government will be gleaning a whole new and rich stream of data without even leaving the government-backed monitoring center.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, reportedly requested research on billionaire George Soros, and wanted to see if the investor was shorting Facebook's stock, the company said to multiple news organizations on Thursday.

That news comes after it was revealed that Facebook had a relationship with the opposition-research firm, Definers Public Affairs. Definers has had ties to Republican campaigns and it previously released a report that suggested Soros, a popular target for anti-Semitic and right-wing groups, was secretly funding anti-Facebook organizations.

Sandberg, who has been at the crux of recent controversies involving the company, previously suggested she was unaware of Facebook's relationship with Definers.

"I did not know we hired them or about the work they were doing, but I should have," she said wrote earlier in November.

Following news of the firm's relationship with Facebook, the tech giant immediately cut ties with the company.

Read more: Sheryl Sandberg repeatedly tried to downplay Russia's involvement in misinformation on Facebook, report says

A Facebook spokesperson said Sandberg did not direct Definers Public Affairs, adding that she did request information about Soros' "potential motivations," BuzzFeed News reported. Her request followed Soros' appearance at the World Economic Forum in January, where he described tech companies like Facebook and Google as a "menace" and "internet monopolies."

"Mr. Soros is a prominent investor and we looked into his investments and trading activity related to Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson said to BuzzFeed News. "That research was already underway when Sheryl sent an email asking if Mr. Soros had shorted Facebook's stock."

"Sheryl never directed research on Freedom from Facebook," the spokesperson added, referring to an anti-Facebook campaign. "But as she said before she takes full responsibility for any activity that happened on her watch."

Following the public backlash, Facebook's outgoing boss of policy and communications, Elliot Schrage, took the blame.

"Responsibility for these decisions rests with leadership of the Communications team," Schrage said in a memo. "That's me. Mark [Zuckerberg] and Sheryl [Sandberg] relied on me to manage this without controversy."

Insurance startups have raised billions as industry players fight tech disruptors

Bright Health co-founders Bob Sheehy, CEO; Tom Valdivia, chief medical officer; and Kyle Rolfing, president

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Business Insider Intelligence Smart speakers comprise one of the fastest-growing device segments in the consumer technology market today. Ownership levels have nearly doubled from early 2017 to summer 2018.

With this rapid growth, there are a few pivotal questions that both companies looking to develop and sell smart speakers as well as those looking to sell products, deliver media, and offer access to services like banking over these devices need answers to in order to craft successful strategies. In particular, they need to know who is and isn't buying smart speakers, and what consumers who own smart speakers are actually doing with them.

To offer these stakeholders insight, Business Insider Intelligence asked more than 500 US consumers about their knowledge of smart speakers, the devices they do or don't own and what led them to their purchase decisions, as well as the tasks they're using their smart speakers for.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence will look at the state of the smart speaker market and outline how each of the major device providers approaches the space. We will then focus on the key factors that affect whether or not someone owns one of these devices. Next, we will use our survey data to outline the reasons why people don't own devices in order to offer guidance for who to target and how. Finally, we will discuss what consumers are actually doing with their smart speakers — specifically looking at how the devices are used and perceived in e-commerce, digital media, and banking — which can help companies determine how well they're publicizing their smart speaker services and capabilities.

The companies mentioned in this report are: Amazon, Google, Apple, Samsung, Facebook, Sonos, LG, Anker, Spotify, Pandora, Grubhub, Netflix, Hulu, Instagram, Snap.

Here are some key takeaways from the report: