• United Kingdom officials proposed giving Huawei Technologies Co. a limited role in building out the country’s 5G network that would prevent it from accessing restricted government systems and the core part of the network, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, in opposition to American recommendations to completely ban the company from the project due to Chinese spying concerns. British officials are set to meet with the country’s National Security Council next week to formally decide how to deploy Huawei’s equipment, the sources said. (Reuters)

• French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the United States and France have officially reached an agreement in their trade dispute over his country’s new digital tax. During a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Le Maire agreed to delay the tax on multinational digital companies until the end of the year, while the United States agreed to halt plans for retaliatory tariffs against the country. (Bloomberg)

• The Internal Revenue Service sought to fully audit Facebook Inc. a few years after the company opened its global headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, in an alleged effort to lower its taxes, but the agency fell short after congressional budget cuts that made it difficult to hire experts and dedicate resources, a new investigation shows. In an incomplete 2016 audit, the IRS claimed Facebook mispriced its 2008 move to Ireland and should have paid billions more in taxes — which it will also argue before a judge in a trial scheduled for next month; Facebook has called the agency’s allegations “arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable.” (ProPublica)

Boris Johnson communicated with Saudi crown prince on WhatsApp, ex-UK officials say
Ben Riley-Smith and Christopher Hope, The Telegraph

Boris Johnson has been in communication with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince over WhatsApp, multiple former UK government figures have told The Telegraph, raising major security concerns in light of the Jeff Bezos hack.

Trump: It ‘wouldn’t be too frightening’ if Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ran for president
Jessica Bursztynsky, CNBC

President Donald Trump told CNBC on Wednesday he wouldn’t be against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg running for the White House. “I heard he was going to run for president. That wouldn’t be too frightening, I don’t think,” Trump told “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen in an interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Amazon asks court to pause Microsoft’s work on Pentagon’s JEDI contract
Jeffrey Dastin, Reuters

Amazon.com Inc said on Wednesday it filed a motion in court to pause the U.S. Department of Defense and Microsoft Corp from carrying out an up to $10 billion cloud computing deal until a court rules on its protest of the contract award. Amazon, originally considered to be the favorite to win the award, had indicated last week that it would file a temporary restraining order to require the Pentagon and Microsoft to hold off beyond initial activities for the contract.

‘#BoycottAmazonProducts’: How Saudi bots, Twitter, and newspapers are reacting to accusations that their Crown Prince hacked Jeff Bezos’ phone
Bill Bostock, Business Insider

Pro-Saudi social media, and Saudi newspapers and government officials, are reacting angrily to the accusation that their Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hacked Jeff Bezos’ phone. Saudi officials refuted the claims on Tuesday, and on Thursday the hashtag #قاطعوا_منتجات_امازون (#BoycottAmazonproducts) trended in Saudi Arabia, and was used 10,000 times by 5 a.m ET.

Tech giants led by Amazon, Facebook and Google spent nearly half a billion on lobbying over the past decade, new data shows
Tony Romm, The Washington Post

Ten years ago, Google executives rarely spoke to Congress. Amazon employed just two of its own registered lobbyists in Washington. And Facebook had only recently graduated to a real office after running its D.C. operation out of an employee’s living room.

Barr Ratchets Up Pressure on Tech With Liability Threat
Ashley Gold, The Information

Last week, Attorney General William Barr went on the offensive against the tech industry, scolding Apple for refusing to grant authorities access to phones used by the gunman in the deadly shooting at a Navy base in Pensacola, Florida, in December. The public confrontation over data privacy and security was Barr’s latest effort to challenge big tech companies, which are coming up against mounting hostility from the Trump administration and other policy makers over the industry’s wide-ranging influence.

When the Tech Backlash Turns Dangerous: Fake Calls for a SWAT Team
Sheera Frenkel, The New York Times

Online forums carry personal details of potential targets like industry leaders and their families. The police are struggling to find a solution.

Stocks Slip, Bonds Gain on Virus Fears; Oil Slides: Markets Wrap
Todd White, Bloomberg

U.S. equity futures fluctuated while European stocks edged lower and Asian shares slumped on Thursday amid lingering concerns that a virus spreading from China to other countries could become a drag on global growth. Treasuries climbed and crude oil fell.

6 reasons smaller companies want to break up Big Tech
Jason Del Rey, Recode

Big Tech has a target on its back. Right now in the US, there are multiple, simultaneous government investigations focused on the business practices of each of the four Big Tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook — that could someday lead to the breakup of these companies or major changes in how they operate.

TripAdvisor Cuts Hundreds of Jobs After Google Competition Bites
Mark Gurman and Olivia Carville, Bloomberg

TripAdvisor Inc. is cutting hundreds of jobs, according to people familiar with the situation, underscoring the company’s need to reduce costs as competition from Google intensifies.

Facing Pushback From Allies, U.S. Set for Broader Huawei Effort
Stu Woo, The Wall Street Journal

The U.S. is preparing for a longer and broader campaign to banish Huawei Technologies Co. from next-generation 5G cellular networks around the world, as Washington faces resistance on the front line of its lobbying campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.

FCC Asks Record Labels to Document Anti-Payola Policies
Anne Steele, The Wall Street Journal

The Federal Communications Commission asked the three major music companies for details on their anti-payola policies, citing unspecified recent reports of practices that would violate laws meant to prevent record companies from paying radio stations to play their music. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly sent a letter last week to the compliance chiefs at Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment and Access Industries Inc.’s Warner Music Group, which control some 80% of the recorded-music market.

Twitter Borked Its Own Platform Trying to Fix Its Nazi Ad-Targeting Problem
Shoshana Wodinsky, Gizmodo

Like most companies in the tech realm, Twitter is no stranger to weirdly hollow apologies. Some of the company’s greatest hits happened when it was grilled on offensive trending topics (whoops!), leaking account info to hackers (oopsie!), and failing to deal with the harassment-filled cesspool a lot of us know the platform to be (lol, sorry).

Trump had his biggest presidential Twitter day as he reacted to his impeachment trial
Sean Keane, CNET

President Donald Trump tweeted up a storm Wednesday, sending more microblogging messages than on any other day of his presidency. He sent 142 tweets to his 71.4 million followers, with the majority of those being retweets slamming his impeachment trial, according to Trump indexing site Factbase.

As Australia Burned, Climate Change Denialism Got A Boost On Facebook
Hannah Ryan and Cameron Wilson, BuzzFeed News

Numerous experts have linked the vast scale of Australia’s bushfires to climate change, noting that unprecedented heat and drought created conditions for fires to flourish. But as Australians choked on smoke and discovered their homes had been destroyed this summer, a different message was spreading on Facebook.

Coming Soon to Tinder Dates: Panic Buttons and Safety Check-Ins
Georgia Wells, The Wall Street Journal

Tinder wants to allow users to send out an alarm when bad dates turn really ugly. The popular dating app plans to start offering users an option to hit a panic button, receive check-ins to make sure they feel safe, and even summon authorities to their location.

Facebook’s rising Democrat problem
Sara Fischer and Scott Rosenberg, Axios

One of Facebook’s biggest headaches leading up to 2020 isn’t election interference or fake news — it’s worrying about what a Democrat in the White House could mean for the business. Why it matters: The Obama administration’s warm embrace of Big Tech is no longer shared by many Democratic policymakers and presidential hopefuls.

Bezos Hack Began With Saudi Goodwill Tour, Intimate Dinner
David Wainer and Alyza Sebenius, Bloomberg

In the spring of 2018, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, arrived in the U.S. for a three-week cross-country tour to pitch a progressive vision for his kingdom, including an economic plan less reliant on oil, and to charm America’s elite. He visited MIT and Harvard, talked space travel with Richard Branson and hobnobbed with celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, according to media reports.

Tech Companies Volunteer to Beef Up Presidential Campaigns’ Cybersecurity
Alexa Corse, The Wall Street Journal

Nearly a dozen technology companies said they will provide free or reduced-cost cybersecurity services to presidential campaigns, which experts and intelligence officials have warned are ripe targets for intrusion and disinformation.

Equifax Breach: 147 Million Affected, but Most Sit Out Settlement
Tara Siegel Bernard, The New York Times

Roughly two years ago, nearly half the American population had their personal information compromised by hackers in Equifax’s enormous database. Consumers were outraged, lawmakers upbraided the chief executive and Equifax ultimately reached a settlement with regulators for up to $700 million.

Weakening Encryption Could Impact Election Security, Coalition Says
Frank Konkel, Nextgov

A coalition for secure elections sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr Wednesday, criticizing the AG for recent comments he made calling on companies to create a “backdoor” through encryption. The letter, published by the Project on Government Oversight, warns such backdoors—even if expressly for use by law enforcement—would weaken the security of encrypted services and devices, “opening the door” for hackers to harm users.

Apple’s privacy software allowed users to be tracked, says Google
Madhumita Murgia, Financial Times

Search group’s researchers find security flaws in anti-tracking tool in Safari browser.

Tilting at Windmills: Why Data Concerns Don’t Add Up to an Antitrust Case
David Balto, Morning Consult

Antitrust is becoming front and center in the country’s economic discussion. Hardly a week goes by without a politician or an apparently well-meaning public advocate calling for some new investigation, break up, or industry restructuring.

When Will Companies Finally Step Up to Fight Climate Change?
Kara Swisher, The New York Times

Microsoft and BlackRock have made positive moves. But there’s still a lot of money to be made in green tech.

The Apps on My Phone Are Stalking Me
Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times

There is much about the future that keeps me up at night — A.I. weaponry, undetectable viral deepfakes, indefatigable and infinitely wise robotic op-ed columnists — but in the last few years, one technological threat has blipped my fear radar much faster than others.

Artificial Intelligence In Health Care: Benefits And Challenges of Machine Learning in Drug Development
U.S. Government Accountability Office

Drug companies spend 10 to 15 years bringing a drug to market, often at a high cost. Machine learning could reduce the time and cost by finding new insights in large biomedical or health-related data sets.