Google CEO Sundar Pichai receives an astronomical paycheque. Amazon and Netflix are teaming up for a lawsuit against a leading U.S. provider of Android TV boxes. And Cambridge Analytica founder Aleksandr Kogan calls Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a hypocrite.
Trending on LinkedIn: Before Google parent Alphabet Inc. announced its latest quarterly results on Monday, Bloomberg did the math on CEO Sundar Pichai’s compensation: the 353,939 restricted shares he received before a 2014 promotion are now worth about $380 million USD – one of the larger payouts to an executive of a public company in recent years, though as Bloomberg notes, Elon Musk collected $1.34 billion from Tesla in 2016 and Mark Zuckerberg cashed in $2.28 billion worth of Facebook shares in 2012. Pichai has been CEO of Google since 2015.
Also from LinkedIn: Amazon and Netflix are teaming up with several major studios, including Fox, Warner Brothers, and Disney, to sue Set Broadcast, LLC, the Florida manufacturer behind an Android TV Box-like service called Set TV, which they allege is little more than a vehicle for streaming pirated content. As with Android TV boxes, Set TV users are told they can use the company’s software to access livestreams of 500 channels and “on-demand” streaming content – including, the studios allege, movies still in theatres – for $20 USD per month. The studios are seeking $150,000 USD per copyright infringed. Set has not yet responded to the allegations.
Finally, on Reddit, users are talking about Cambridge Analytica founder Aleksandr Kogan, who recently gave his first interview with a major media outlet since his company’s name became synonymous with Facebook’s lax data privacy standards. Speaking to CNBC on Monday, Kogan called Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a hypocrite for presenting Cambridge Analytica as a rogue agent covertly harvesting the data of up to 87 million users, saying that tens of thousands of other apps were doing the same thing. Which we’d argue isn’t really a defense. Kogan went on to say that he believes Facebook’s business model, which involves selling ads based on user information, is the true culprit and will lead to more privacy issues if it’s not changed.