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.

Do you work at Facebook? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via Signal or WhatsApp at +1 (650) 636-6268 using a non-work phone, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

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."

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:

Millennial startup Mic sold itself to Bustle Digital Group for a reported $5 million, a fraction of the $60 million it raised, after financial problems including the impact of Facebook canceling a video show.

But the Mic situation reveals broader challenges with the Facebook-funded shows, and the ongoing relationships between publishers and the social-media giant.

Mic was one of eight publishers, along with the likes of CNN, ABC News, and Fox News, that Facebook picked to produce its first slate of news shows for its YouTube rival Facebook Watch. Facebook was reportedly spending $90 million to signal it was taking news seriously after coming under fire for letting fake news spread on the platform. The first shows were announced in June and rolled out during the summer.

Later in the summer, Facebook announced a second batch of funded news shows, from the likes of Bloomberg, BuzzFeed News, Business Insider, and PBS NewsHour.

At the time, Facebook said, "'Mic Dispatch' reveals the world as we see it: complicated, diverse and full of potential. Mic correspondents on this new, twice-weekly show go beyond the headlines to profile the underrepresented, the problem-solvers and the provocateurs."

Read more: Mic says it's doing just fine, despite digital Armageddon

'Mic Dispatch' was inconsistent in its audience

The funding amounts varied. Mic reportedly was going to be paid $5 million over a year. But "Mic Dispatch," airing two episodes a week lasting around 15 minutes long each, was inconsistent in its audience. Early on, three episodes cracked the 1 million views mark. Recent episodes have routinely had under 100,000 views. The show itself had about 85,000 followers.

In contrast, daily shows such as Fox News' "Fox News Update," CNN's "Anderson Cooper Full Circle," and ABC News' "On Location" have hundreds of thousands of followers each and have regularly been getting a few hundred thousand views per episode. Business Insider's show Business Insider Today has around 290,000 followers.

Those shows air daily, which could give them an advantage because they have that much more opportunity to be seen and gain an audience. The companies also have big platforms of their own on which to promote their shows, something Mic doesn't have.

But a big question from the get-go with the news shows was how big of an audience they would be able to get, given the video section Watch, Facebook's bid for TV ad dollars, was only about a year old and didn't have an intentional audience. Most people only ended up watching Watch shows because they were promoted in their feeds.

Some publishers put aside those concerns since they were getting paid by Facebook to make the shows, limiting their risk. But a common complaint among Watch publishers is that, except for some promotion early on, Facebook did little to get attention for the shows. "They could put it in front of a billion people if they chose," one source said.

In addition to organic view counts, which Facebook counts at three seconds, Facebook also looks at nonpublic numbers such as view time and return visits in deciding whether to renew the shows, sources said.

Facebook didn't set performance requirements for publishers, making it hard for them to gauge if their shows were satisfactory to the platform, and it reserved the right to cancel shows at various points during the contract period, publishing sources said. "We're given no metric they're trying to hit," one source said.

Mic was a poster child for publishers relying on Facebook

Mic has emerged as a poster child for publishers' overly relying on Facebook for traffic, only to see their audiences tumble when Facebook changes its priorities. Many publishers saw their Facebook traffic drop in January when Facebook decreased the amount of news content that users see in their news feeds.

Mic continued to rely on Facebook for its social following, despite efforts to pivot. In the case of the Watch show, Mic retooled its newsroom around it, with 25 people working on it. The show was owned by Facebook, so Mic couldn't make additional money off the show by licensing it somewhere else.

Mic execs didn't respond to a request for comment.

Ultimately, even though Facebook is paying publishers for Watch, the experiment shows the risks of relying on a platform whose strategy is constantly evolving. The news shows are an initiative of Campbell Brown, Facebook's head of news partnerships, and are a small part of the larger Watch section, which has been favoring entertainment shows tied to celebrities with built-in audiences. Adding to the uncertainty, Brown repeatedly used the words "test" and "experiment" when describing the news shows.

"It's a classic example of disorganization there," one Watch publisher said. "I just don't think any of them will be renewed."

This holiday season could be a happy one for the big players in the digital advertising business.

Google and Amazon are seeing a notable uptick in ad sales, Colin Sebastian, a financial analyst with Baird Equity Research, said in a new report, citing data from Merkle, a marketing firm that tracks the digital advertising industry. Meanwhile, all indications are that advertisers are continuing to support and spend their money on Facebook, despite the string of scandals and fiascos the company has endured this year.

"Spending growth remains generally steady/healthy across the leading platforms," Sebastian said in the report.

So far this quarter, ad spending on Google is growing at a 19% annual clip, according to the Merkle data cited by Sebastian. That's up from the 18% growth rate the company saw in the third quarter.

While advertisers continue to invest in Google, they are shifting some of their dollars, Sebastian said. In particular, their moving some of their budgets from text-based search ads to Google Shopping, the company's comparison shopping service that allows marketers to tout their products with photographs and to link to places to buy them. Thus far this quarter, ad spending on Google Shopping is up 40% year-over-year, according to the Merkle data.

Google's "shopping ads [are] still cannibalizing other formats," Sebastian said.

Ad spending on Amazon is up 150% from early November, according to Merkle. That rise is in-line with the surge seen at more established digital ad companies, Sebastian noted. That's yet another sign that the e-commerce giant is becoming a significant player in the industry.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Advertisers seem to be sticking with the company this holiday, despite its string of scandals. Getty At least so far, Amazon doesn't appear to be stealing ad spending away from Google, according to the report. Instead, marketers are redirecting money they would have traditionally spent on offline advertising to the e-commerce site, Sebastian said, citing Merkle.

Amazon's "ad growth appears largely incremental," he said. The e-commerce giant is "not taking share from Google search, despite headlines and concerns to the contrary," he continued.

As for Facebook, ad spending appears steady, according to the report. The company has been hit with multiple privacy and security scandals this year, including the leak of data on millions of users to Cambridge Analytica. But advertisers don't seem to be moving their budgets from it to other outlets, Sebastian said, citing Merkle.

Read this:Sheryl Sandberg is on the hot seat at Facebook — but ousting her alone wouldn't solve its problems

While Facebook's advertising revenue growth has been slowing, that's largely due to the way the company is changing its main service and shifting the emphasis to its Story format from the News Feed, Sebastian said.

"There is no evidence of a backlash related to recent Facebook privacy concerns," he said, paraphrasing Merkle's analysis.

Tesla owners will be able to summon their vehicles with their phones "from across the continent" in a few years, CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday via Twitter.

"You can summon your Tesla from your phone. Only short distances today, but in a few years summon will work from across the continent," he said.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether any restrictions will be placed on long-distance use of the summon feature.

The summon feature allows Tesla owners to move their vehicles forward or backward over short distances.

Read more: I tried Tesla's new Autopilot feature that helps navigate during highway driving to see if it's helpful — here's the verdict

Musk has said Tesla owners will be able to control an increasing number of driving functions with their phones. In early November, he said an upcoming software update would allow Tesla owners to drive their cars with their phones in some situations.

"Car will drive to your phone location & follow you like a pet if you hold down summon button on Tesla app," Musk said.

"Also, you'll be able to drive it from your phone remotely like a big RC car if in line of sight," he added.

Musk said the update to Tesla's AutoPark feature, which allows vehicles to park with limited driver assistance, would arrive in about six weeks. The update will also give Tesla vehicles the ability to find and choose parking spots without driver assistance, Musk said. Currently, the feature identifies possible parking spots for drivers to choose and then moves the vehicle into the chosen spot.

The forthcoming updates follow the introduction in October of a new Autopilot feature, called Navigate on Autopilot, that can recommend lane changes, navigate transitions between highways, and take exits, with driver supervision. Autopilot can also keep a car in its lane and adjust its speed based on surrounding traffic, among other features.

In early October, Consumer Reports released its rankings of four semiautonomous driver-assistance systems. The publication ranked Autopilot second, behind Cadillac's Super Cruise. Autopilot received the highest rating for capability and performance and ease of use but received the lowest rating for keeping drivers engaged.

Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

In response to getting kicked off Twitter, far-right conservative Laura Loomer chained herself to the platform's Manhattan headquarters Thursday night.

Livestream video posted to Periscope on Thursday night captured Laura Loomer, who had handcuffed to the glass doors leading into Twitter's Manhattan headquarters. It didn't take long before a crowd and police gathered, and the street was closed off.

At its peak, the Periscope live stream had almost 10,000 viewers.

Read more:Uber and Lyft bar far-right activist who complained about Muslim Uber drivers

"It's almost as if Twitter hates Jews and conservatives," Loomer said during her protest. "When is Jack Dorsey going to stop censoring conservatives? When am I going to get my Twitter back? I'll be here as long as it takes."

Loomer ended her stand shortly after 6 p.m., when she asked police to cut off her handcuffs after a little more than two hours of protest.

Twitter permanently banned Loomer from the platform in November after a tweet she sent about Minnesota Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar. In a post on her website, Loomer published a screenshot of the message Twitter sent her, saying she had violated the platform's rules on "hateful conduct."

Loomer tweeted that Omar, one of first two Muslim women elected to Congress, was "anti-Jewish" and that her religion pushed homophobia and abuse of women.

Laura Loomer

Facebook followed suit, but has only issued a temporary 30-day ban.

This isn't the first time Loomer has tried to capture the attention of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. When Dorsey testified in front of Congress in September, she interrupted the hearing to call the CEO a "liar."

"We have notified the relevant authorities who are responding," Twitter said in a statement to Business Insider. "The account holder was suspended for violating our policies. We apply the Twitter Rules impartially and not based on ideology."

Loomer's behavior has also led to similar bans in the past. In late 2017, Uber and Lyft both kicked her off their ride-hailing platforms for a series of tweets Loomer posted about Muslim drivers for the platforms.

"I'm late to the NYPD press conference because I couldn't find a non Muslim cab or @Uber @lyft driver for over 30 min! This is insanity," Loomer wrote.

Read more: Uber and Lyft bar far-right activist who complained about Muslim Uber drivers

Loomer has also accused Twitter of holding up a "double standard" that allows anyone on the platform who is liberal or Muslim to do "whatever they want." During her protest, Loomer wore a Jewish star reminiscent of the Holocaust as a symbol of what she says is rampant anti-Semitism on Twitter.

Police informed Loomer that Twitter says it won't press charges against her for chaining herself to its headquarters., and that she's allowed to stay chained to the door as long as she wants. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, protesters cannot block the entrance into a building under New York City law.

Loomer said she didn't have a key to unlock her handcuffs and the chains would need to be cut off. Police officers offered early on to cut the chain off for her if she wanted.

"I wish I could give you an answer, but Facebook and Twitter won't let me speak," Loomer said on the livestream.

Bethesda Studios has frequently been the target of critics and punchlines for releasing their games with a bevy of unintentional glitches and bugs over the years, but the studio's newest game, "Fallout 76," may not be able to recover from its controversial launch.

Disgruntled fans are demanding refunds, and Bethesda's handling of the backlash has led at least one law firm to consider a class-action lawsuit.

While Bethesda's "Fallout" is widely respected as one of the best first-person-shooter series, the shift to a massively multiplayer format for "Fallout 76" brought a wave of skepticism from fans. The game's early reception was warm at best, competing against major releases like "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4" and "Red Dead Redemption 2."

But even those who decided to give "Fallout 76" a try have struggled with limited gameplay and game-breaking glitches, leading waves of players to demand a full refund from Bethesda.

Bethesda's refund policy states that players cannot receive a refund after downloading the game, but some players reported that their refunds were granted after contacting the support team.

Read more: A dedicated group of 'Fallout 76' players crashed the game's server with a trio of nuclear explosions

Players who successfully lobbied for a refund posted on Reddit, sparking a series of requests for refunds from r/Fallout users. Bethesda ultimately reverted to its no-refund policy, but the inconsistency has left players even more irate with the company's business practices.

In a separate situation, players who ordered the $200 "Fallout 76 Power Armor Edition" reported that the bundle did not ship as advertised.

While the special-edition package was supposed to contain a West Tek canvas bag, Bethesda substituted it for a cheaper nylon bag. A customer who made an inquiry to a support employee was told that the company decided to change the bag because of a lack of supplies, and Bethesda had no plans to address the issue.

The unhelpful response led to another wave of complaints, prompting Bethesda to issue a follow-up statement and offer those who purchased the special edition an additional $5 worth of in-game currency.

Now a Washington, D.C., law firm, Migliaccio and Rathod LLP, has announced that they plan to investigate Bethesda's refund policy and the "Power Armor Edition" advertisements to determine if it's worth filing a class-action lawsuit claiming deceptive trade practices. In preparation for a potential class-action lawsuit, the firm is asking dissatisfied players to submit a confidential questionnaire if they attempted to get a refund or received the nylon bag with the "Power Armor Edition."

The outlook for "Fallout 76" is already looking grim two weeks after its release, but Bethesda will have to work to make sure that future games aren't impacted by the negative feedback. The company has already detailed improvements coming to "Fallout 76" next month and promised greater transparency moving forward.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. and DJ Khaled were two of the most well-known celebrities to jump on the cryptocurrency bandwagon last year.

Now their promotion of particular initial coin offerings has gotten them in trouble.

Mayweather, a former boxing champion, and Khaled, a record producer, will each pay more than $100,000 in fines to settle charges that they illegally promoted an initial coin offering without disclosing that they were paid for it, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Thursday. They also both agreed to forgo promoting any other ICOs or stocks for multiple years, the SEC said.

"These cases highlight the importance of full disclosure to investors," Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC's enforcement division, said in a statement. "With no disclosure about the payments, Mayweather and Khaled's ICO promotions may have appeared to be unbiased, rather than paid endorsements."

Neither Mayweather nor Khaled admitted to or denied the charges.

Mayweather and Khaled were both paid by Centra Tech to to tout its controversial ICO last year, according to the SEC. Centra Tech paid Mayweather $100,000 and Khaled $50,000, the agency said. Both then promoted the ICO on their social media accounts to their followers, but neither disclosed that they were being paid to tout it, the SEC said.

Centra was supposed to be developing a debit card for cryptocurrencies. But federal law enforcement officials say it was really a fraudulent scheme, and have filed civil and criminal charges against its founders.

Read this: The SEC charges a third Centra cryptocurrency 'mastermind' with fraud over its $32 million ICO

Mayweather also was paid $200,000 to tout two other ICOs and failed to disclose the payments, according to the SEC.

As part of his settlement, Mayweather will hand over to the SEC the $300,000 he was paid to promote the three ICOs, pay a $300,000 fine, and pay $14,775 in interest, according to the agency. Khaled agreed to hand over the $50,000 he was paid by Centra and pay both a $100,000 fine and $2,725 in interest.

Mayweather will be barred from touting ICOs or other securities for three years; Khaled for two. Additionally, Mayweather will cooperate with the SEC's investigation of Centra, the agency said.

The last time a NASA spacecraft safely landed on the moon was in December 1972. Nearly half a century after Apollo 17, though, the space agency is itching to return.

NASA announced on Thursday that it's offering up to $2.6 billion in contracts to nine American companies to get the agency back to the lunar surface.

NASA isn't going to buy the company's lunar landers outright, nor will it take responsibility for launching, landing, or controlling the robots. Instead, NASA wants the private sector to deal with those challenges and bid on the opportunity to take NASA's experiments to the moon.

"We're doing something that's never been done before," Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, said during a live broadcast on Thursday. "When we go to the moon, we want to be one customer of many customers in a robust marketplace between the Earth and the moon."

Read more: Astronauts explain why nobody has visited the moon in more than 45 years — and the reasons are depressing

Bridenstine added that the goal is take advantage of emerging international demand — both commercial and from other nations' space agencies — to land on and exploit the moon's resources.

He views the $2.6 billion in potential contracts (it's unlikely all of this money would be spent) as a way to spur companies to "compete on cost and innovation so that we, as NASA, can do more than we've ever been able to do before."

A lunar exploration program led by science

A map of "cold traps" inside lunar craters at the moon's north pole (left) and south pole (right). Green and teal dots show locations where water ice may be present at or near the surface.PNAS

The effort is a new phase of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS), which aims to encourage commercial moon missions. Bridenstine said NASA's scientific division will decide how the money is spent, not its human exploration division.

"The moon is full of secrets that we don't know yet," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, said during today's briefing.

Zurbuchen explained that the agency will create a catalog of payloads for the companies to bid on taking to the moon. The first round of proposals are due in January, NASA said in a release. The first missions could fly to the moon as soon as 2019, though possibly as late as 2022.

An illustration of a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway concept for NASA by Boeing. Boeing

In addition to enabling science experiments that might refine what we know about the age of the solar system and universe, CLPS could also be a stepping stone toward human space exploration.

If successful, the program could pinpoint places to explore with NASA's "Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway": a human space station to be built in the vicinity of the moon some time in the 2020s.

"On the moon there is water. On the moon, there are precious resources," Zurbuchen said. "We want to learn how to use these resources because — guess what? — we want to go back with humans and actually use those resources for us to bring back to Earth or to fuel, to breathe, to drink."

Read more: The moon has ice on its surface in hundreds of places — and it could be the 'first step in building a space economy'

Water can be turned into hydrogen and oxygen, which can then be used as rocket fuel to power ambitious deep-space exploration (including that of Mars). So later on, NASA may use this competition to solicit much larger landers that could take people to and from the lunar surface in the late 2020s.

"Ultimately we're going to take it all the way to Mars from the moon," Bridenstine said. "We want to take advantage of the water ice that we believe is available in the hundreds of billions of tons on the surface of the moon."

The 9 companies invited to compete for NASA's billions

An illustration of Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine moon lander.Astrobotic Technology

In alphabetical order, these are the nine companies that NASA thinks are up to the task of getting its experiments to the moon (and maybe back):

NASA said this list may expand, and these companies will not be alone in their commercial efforts.

Thom Baur/Reuters

Many of the nine companies use subcontractors to build landing and avionics systems, and all of them will require private rocket rides to the moon, since NASA's Space Launch System won't be ready to fly for years.

SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, has a new Falcon Heavy rocket that's powerful enough to send a large spacecraft or multiple small landers to the moon for perhaps less than $100 million.

There's also Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos. In October, Blue Origin said it's "in the conceptual design phase" of building a large lunar lander called "Blue Moon." The company is also creating a reusable rocket system called New Glenn, which may take flight in 2020.

An illustration of Blue Origin's reusable New Glenn rocket launching toward space.Blue Origin

The Peregrine lander

One of the nine companies NASA named, Astrobotic, formed in 2007 during the Google Lunar X Prize. That $20 million competition was intended to spur private exploration of the moon, but the contest shuttered in 2018 without a winner. However, Astrobotic continued developing a small lunar lander called Peregrine. (Prior to NASA's announcement, Business Insider independently confirmed that Astrobotic would be one of the commercial partners.)

In March, Astrobotic was reportedly working with aerospace company United Launch Alliance (ULA) to find room on a rocket that could fly Peregrine to the moon sometime in 2020. Space News reported in May that Astrobotic was preparing to bring 12 payloads to the lunar surface.

Then in August, Astrobotic received $10 million from NASA to create a "low-cost, reliable, high-performance, stand-alone" system to land a commercial lunar spacecraft on the moon. The funding was part of $44 million in awards that NASA gave to companies developing "tipping point" technologies for space exploration.

Unlike previous efforts by NASA to get back to the lunar surface — all of which sputtered out — Bridenstine said the CLPS program will succeed.

"This is not going to be 'Lucy and the Football' again," he said, referring to the famous "Peanuts" comic (in which Charlie Brown never gets to kick a football).

"Everybody is ready to go back to the moon," Bridenstine added.

Tesla vehicles will receive new video games and other Easter eggs before the end of this year, CEO Elon Musk said on Thursday via Twitter.

"Super fun software Easter eggs coming to all Tesla S/3/X cars before the holidays! Romance mode, toilet humor & more video games," he said.

Tesla declined a request for comment on what "romance mode" and "toilet humor" referred to or what additional games it will include in its vehicles.

Read more: Tesla's cars are full of hidden Easter eggs — here the coolest ones

When a Twitter user asked Musk if a version of the Nintendo racing game "Mario Kart" would be included in Tesla vehicles, Musk said Nintendo didn't give Tesla permission to license the game.

"We tried. Nintendo won't license it to us," Musk said of Tesla's effort to include the game in its vehicles.

In October, Tesla said it included classic Atari video games as hidden Easter eggs in its latest software update, but didn't specify which games were available. Musk said in August that he had hoped to include "Pole Position," "Tempest," and "Missile Command" in the software update.

Four games were available as of early October, according to a video from the YouTube channel, "What's Inside? Family," three of which Musk had not mentioned in his August tweet.

These are the games that were available in Tesla vehicles as of October, as well as the ones Musk has said he wants to include.