creative

0

By Dan Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A driver for Google's same day delivery service filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the company on Friday, alleging it improperly classified her as an independent contractor and owes expenses. The case, filed in a Massachusetts state court, comes days after Amazon Prime Now drivers filed a similar lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc in California. Like drivers in the Amazon case, Google Express driver Anna Coorey said in her lawsuit that she was hired by an intermediary courier service but is required to work only for Google during her shift.

0

Apple Inc's mobile wallet Apple Pay is winning over more U.S. households a year after its launch, but growth has slowed, research released on Monday showed. Fourteen percent of U.S. households with credit cards had signed up for the payment option by the end of September, up from 11 percent in February, Phoenix Marketing International said at a payments conference in Las Vegas. “A very rapid initial threshold was achieved by Apple Pay and it is still growing but the growth rate has slowed down,” said Greg Weed, director of card performance research at Phoenix.

0

(Reuters) – Yahoo Inc reported quarterly revenue and profit below analyst estimates on Tuesday in the latest setback for Marissa Mayer's efforts to turn around the company. Yahoo, whose shares were down slightly in extended trading, also said it had signed a search advertisement deal with Google Inc, a unit of Alphabet Inc . Google will pay Yahoo a percentage of revenue from ads displayed on Yahoo sites and get fees for requests for image or Web search results.

0

By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Julia Fioretti SAN FRANCISCO/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. businesses from online coupon company RetailMeNot Inc to security software company Symantec Corp said a European change to rules governing transatlantic personal data transfers would hurt U.S. companies and called for a quick fix. An EU court on Tuesday struck down a deal to let U.S. and European companies easily transfer personal data between continents, leaving some U.S. companies concerned that they will be frozen out of the market or replaced by EU competitors. “The biggest fear is they'll lose the opportunity to provide data services in Europe,” said Emery Simon, counselor to BSA | The Software Alliance, an industry group for software companies such as Oracle , Salesforce and IBM .

0

By Julia Fioretti BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The EU's highest court struck down a deal that allows thousands of companies to easily transfer personal data from Europe to the United States, in a landmark ruling on Tuesday that follows revelations of mass U.S. government snooping. Many companies, both U.S. and European, use the Safe Harbour system to help them get round cumbersome checks to transfer data between offices on both sides of the Atlantic. The court said Safe Harbour did not sufficiently protect EU citizens' personal data since the requirements of American national security, public interest and law enforcement trumped the privacy safeguards contained in the framework.

0

By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading.     Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges. The development is a blow to hopes of bitcoin fans that the currency can play a significant role in everyday business transactions in developed economies, with Australia once seen as one of its most promising markets. “We've got a squeaky clean reputation, and that's actually worth a lot more to us than dipping into this,” said James Snodgrass, principal of Sydney's Forsyth Real Estate, which ditched the currency in late 2014 after the firm was investigated by the federal tax office.

0

By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Orbital ATK Inc beat out Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc to become the future sole supplier of solid rocket boosters for United Launch Alliance by offering better long-term pricing agreements, substantial cost reductions and more investment, ULA said Friday. Tory Bruno, chief executive officer of the 50-50 venture owned by Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, said the deal with Orbital, announced last week, was one of many strategic agreements the company was forging with big suppliers to drive down costs and prepare for more competition.

0

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc's social media website was inaccessible for some users on Monday afternoon, its second outage in less than a week. The company's shares were down nearly 4 percent at $89.25 in afternoon trading. Facebook's map on Downdetector.com, which monitors disruptions, showed major outages over parts of North America. (http://bit.ly/1aIqOPd) The social network's mobile app appears to be down as well, but Messenger services appear to be working. A message displayed on facebook.com said “sorry, something went wrong. We're working on it and we'll get it fixed as soon as we can. ..

0

By Yimou Lee HONG KONG (Reuters) – On a bustling street in China's southern boomtown of Shenzhen, more than 30 stores carrying Apple Inc's iconic white logos peddle pre-orders for the new iPhone, a gadget that has become a status symbol among many better-off Chinese.     Many of the stores look just like Apple's signature outlets, right down to the sales staff kitted out in blue T-shirts bearing the company's white logo and the sample iPads and iWatches displayed on sleek wooden tables. Most of the stores in the roughly 1 km shopping corridor are unauthorized “fakes” – although they are selling genuine Apple products – and their numbers have mushroomed ahead of the release on Friday of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6s Plus. The rapid increase in copycat Apple stores underscores the popularity of the brand in China, where it doubled its revenue in the third quarter from a year earlier to more than $13 billion, and suggests the U.S. tech giant is on course to shrug off weakening consumer spending in its second biggest market.

0

(Reuters) – Skype, Microsoft Corp's online telephone and video service, said some users are unable to make calls on Monday because their settings show that they and their contacts are off line, even when they are logged in. In an updated blog post, Skype also said some messages to group chats are not being delivered and that users who are not already signed in may face difficulty while accessing their accounts. Users may also face difficulty loading web pages on the Skype Community, the company said in a blog post.