Who cares what Trump thinks about Europe's record fine for Google?

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It's just days since the Europe hit Google with a record fine for what it described as "very serious illegal behavior" in an antitrust case about the company's abuse of Android to dominate the competition.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of people have an opinion not only about the way Google has acted, but also of the European commission's ruling itself. Among those with an opinion to share is none other than Donald Trump who used the fine as a way to paint the US as a victim at the hands of Europe.

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Senate opposes Trump and votes to reinstate US ban on ZTE

ZTE battery closeup

ZTE has had a tough time of things in the US, having been slapped with a Denial Order that forced it to close its main operations. Despite the sanctions, President Trump expressed a desire to get the company back up and running, implementing a huge fine which ZTE agreed to pay in order to be allowed to operate in the US again.

But in a blow to the Trump administration and its work with Chinese president Xi Jinping, the Senate has voted to amend the National Defense Authorization Act to reinstate sanctions on the company.

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Microsoft issues statement distancing itself from ICE's separation of children from parents

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The separating of children from parents at the US southern border has created international outrage -- and lots of rhetoric from President Trump on Twitter. When Microsoft removed from its website a reference to working with ICE, the company found itself pulled into the political debate.

A blog post from January this year saw Microsoft stating it was "proud" to be working with ICE. When this was spotted, people took to social media to call out Microsoft, making references to the child separation policy; shortly afterwards, the ICE reference was deleted. Now it is back, and Microsoft has issued a statement clarifying its position about border policy.

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USB fans gifted to reporters at Trump-Kim summit spark security fears

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un

Reporters covering the historic meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un in Singapore have been given a gift bag that has security experts concerned.

In addition to bottled water and a local guidebook, the gift bag also contained a USB fan. While on the face of it this would seem to offer a way to combat the Singaporean heat, the fan also sparked warnings that it could be laced with malware.

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Trump to hit ZTE with $1.3 billion fine before it can operate in the US again

ZTE logo on a battery

Having slapped Chinese company ZTE with a denial order which significantly hampered its US operations, President Trump has said that the firm will pay a $1.3 billion fine and change its board and management in order to continue to operate within North America.

ZTE had complained that the denial order was unacceptable, and Trump has more recently indicated a desire to get the company "back into business". Now it seems that the president has come up with a deal that involves the Chinese telecoms firm not only making security guarantees, but also buying components from US companies.

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Judge: President Trump blocking people on Twitter is unconstitutional

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Donald Trump's use of Twitter has long been controversial, and he has developed something of a penchant for blocking people who dare to question or criticize him. Earlier this year a judge suggested that he should make use of the mute option instead of blocking Twitter users, and now another judge has ruled that blocking critics is unconstitutional.

Judge Naomi Buchwald said that Trump's use of the block feature is a violation of people's right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The Department of Justice has indicated that it disagrees and is considering what to do next.

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Trump says he wants to get ZTE 'back into business, fast' despite putting a Denial Order in place

ZTE building logo

Donald Trump has caused confusion after using Twitter to indicate that he would like to get Chinese smartphone manufacturer ZTE "back into business, fast". This is despite the US Department of Commerce banning exports to the company for seven years, something ZTE says left it unable to continue running its main operations.

Trump now says that he's working with China's President Xi to help get the company back up and running. Unsurprisingly, the disparity between what Trump says in his weekend tweet and what the current US sanctions mean has led to a lot of questions.

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Facebook suspends Trump campaign's data analytics team, Cambridge Analytica, for harvesting private information of 50 million users

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica

Facebook has suffered what has been described as the social networks "biggest ever data breach" after Cambridge Analytica and its parent group Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) harvested data from more than 50 million users.

Cambridge Analytica is best known for its work with the Trump campaign for the 2016 election, and Facebook found that the company had violated it data privacy policies. The data was used as part of a "microtargeting" campaign to try to predict and influence voters' choices in the election.

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Trump blocks Broadcom's takeover of Qualcomm, citing national security

Broadcom

Donald Trump has signed an executive order that blocks Broadcom from buying Qualcomm. The takeover has been talked about for a number of months, but now the president -- in line with his "America first" drive -- has scuppered what would have been the largest technology deal ever.

Had the deal gone ahead, a merged Broadcom and Qualcomm would have been responsible for a massive proportion of the chips in phones, computers and connected devices. But US concerns about China mean that the deal is now very much off the table.

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Judge: Trump should mute rather than block critics on Twitter

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Donald Trump's use of Twitter is well known, and it's also been the source of some controversy for one reason or another. As well as his seemingly ill-thought out ramblings causing delight, amazement, disbelief and horror in just about equal measure, it has been suggested that the president's decision to block people who criticize him is unconstitutional.

Now a district judge may have come up with a solution, avoiding concerns about potential violation of the First Amendment. She suggests that rather than blocking people, Trump should just mute their accounts.

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Trump was almost ten times more popular with Russian Twitter bots than Clinton

Donald Trump's Twitter account on smartphone

In the run-up to the 2016 US election, Russian bots shared Donald Trump's tweets 470,000 times -- nearly ten times those of Hillary Clinton.

The figures come courtesy of Twitter, who shared the data with Congress for a review into Russian influence on the election. In the period September 1 to November 15, 2016, Russian bots accounted for more than four percent of Trump's retweets.

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Twitter won't ban Donald Trump because he's special

Donald Trump on Twitter

Since Donald Trump's inauguration, there have been countless calls for him to be banned from Twitter. As well as concerns that his often rash and bombastic statements could cause diplomatic nightmares nationally and internationally, there have also been suggestions that his particularly aggressive tone and threats violate Twitter's policies.

But Twitter has consistently refused to either ban the US president or remove his more controversial tweets -- despite doing the same with other users. Now the company has taken steps to explain why this is. In essence, it's because Trump -- and other world leaders -- have been granted a special status.

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Donald Trump wants US Postal Service to charge Amazon 'much more'

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In an attack on Amazon, President Trump has called upon the US Postal Service to charge the retail giant "much more" to ship packages to customers.

This is not the first time Trump has hit out at Amazon and Jeff Bezos, but his latest vocal volley was not well-received by his followers on Twitter.

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Kaspersky sues Trump administration over government software ban

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US concerns about links between Kaspersky Labs and the Russian government led to a ban on the security software being used on US government computers. The ban was only recently signed into law by Donald Trump, and now Kaspersky has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in response.

Kaspersky Labs is asking a federal court to overturn Trump's ban. The Moscow-based company maintains that it does not have links to the Kremlin, and has published an open letter saying that it had not been afforded "adequate due process" and that the US government's decision was based on flawed information.

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Trump signs bill banning Kaspersky software

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The distrust -- at least publicly -- that the US shows for Russia is well-known. Following concerns about potential espionage from the Kremlin, the government has banned the use of Kaspersky software on its systems.

This ban has now been cemented into law as President Trump signed a bill forbidding the use of Kaspersky Lab software on government computers.

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