Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are taking their rivalry to a new level: Bored of competing to see who can capitulate to authoritarian governments the fastest, they’ve agreed to actually fight one another, in a cage, in Las Vegas.
The confrontation was Musk’s idea, floated in response to Meta’s plans for a Twitter competitor. Zuckerberg, who will definitely be bringing his real legs to the fight, signed up by posting Musk’s tweet (in an Insta story that will disappear within hours) with the reply: “Send Me Location.” And why not? Zuck may be smaller, but he’s a swole jiujitsu champion these days—and, having whiffed so badly with the metaverse, landing a few blows on Musk will demonstrate that he’s finally in tune with what the public wants.
Some have responded to this news by going on about toxic masculinity and midlife crises and cultures of violence and grown men acting like kids in a playground, but not me! With a small modification, this could be a terrific and very timely idea.
Earlier this week, over 150 economists called on leaders from the Global North to tax the extremely rich, with the proceeds going to climate financing, and to ensuring everyone in the world has access to energy, and to a loss-and-damage fund for poorer countries that are particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis, despite having done little to cause it.
Now, there is a chance that rich countries’ governments will not agree to do this, in which case here’s my modest proposal: Why not instead have the extremely rich face off in cage fights, with the loser donating, say, 10% of their fortune to mitigating the climate crisis and ensuring a just energy transition?
Hear me out. Those who like billionaires should be all in because they get to back their favorite billionaire. Those who don’t should be equally enthusiastic, because they get to see billionaires being hit. The billionaires should like it because even if they don’t win, they get to be very philanthropic in the most visible way possible. Just in the tech world, imagine the possibilities: Ballmer v. Ellison, Bezos v. Brin, Gates v. Dorsey. Are you not entertained? I already am.
Over to you, Elon and Mark. Here’s your chance to make your grudge match really mean something.
Very separately, there’s some interesting news on the ad-tech front.
As I wrote last week, even senior U.S. intelligence advisors are getting freaked out about the incredibly detailed personal data that is being freely traded out there. Well, France’s data protection authority CNIL just hit the French ad-tech firm Criteo with a €40 million ($44 million) fine under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for doing things that are pretty much industry-standard.
CNIL found Criteo couldn’t show it had received users’ consent for the processing of their data when its partners dropped tracking cookies into their browsers. The regulator also found Criteo wasn’t complying when those who knew they were being tracked exercised their right to withdraw consent and demand their data’s erasure, nor was it giving people enough information about how their data might be used. Criteo has now changed its partner contracts and filled gaps in its privacy policy, but CNIL still levied a hefty fine due to the scale of its past misdeeds.
Criteo said in a statement that it will appeal and that the fine is “vastly disproportionate in light of the alleged breaches and misaligned with general market practice in such matters.” If CNIL prevails, quite a few market practices may require modification.
More news below.
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David Meyer
Data Sheet’s daily news section was written and curated by Andrea Guzman.
