Tech giants face crackdown in Australia

Google guesses users' age, gender, marital status, income bracket, and personal interests. Using the tool shows that many of Google's predictions can be off-base, but the majority of them are scarily accurate. It's also possible to stop Google from tracking your information or predicting your profile going forward.

Nigeria's agri-tech companies are trying to address the challenges faced by smallholder farmers, as well as provide access to inputs, credit, and markets.

Margrethe Vestager is a leader who is admired and feared at the same time – for taking up the fight against big tech companies. As the EU’s competition commissioner, she’s considered to be one of the most powerful women in Europe. How did she manage to make it all the way to the top? Let’s find out.

Denmark is the EU's first nation to lift all domestic Covid restrictions, raising hopes in northern Europe and beyond. Here in France, new infections have never been higher, but the authorities are relaxing rules too. That's because the vaccination rate is near 90 percent and hospitals are managing. The omicron variant is more infectious but milder. Milder if you are vaccinated, warns the World Health Organization. Many nations remain vulnerable.

For the first time since inception in 2004, Facebook lost about 5 lakh users on a daily basis during Oct-Dec 2021. That saw the shares of its parent company, Meta, plunge 20 percent on the exchanges, wiping off $200 bn in market capitalisation.

Swedish price comparison firm PriceRunner accused Google of "abusing the market" by promoting its own shopping comparisons in search results despite a 2017 EU ruling.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are being held in a "closed-loop" system, where participants and visitors are separated from the public because of Covid-19. It's the perfect environment to push the limits of modern technology and Beijing is showcasing a whole host of innovations, from 5G to robots and from 8K broadcasting to its digital currency, the e-CNY. Peter O'Brien takes us through some of the breakthroughs and controversies surrounding tech at the Games.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday⁣.⁣

Burkina Faso's junta chief orders a three-year transition period before elections. Also, a fourth witness testifies before the ICC against Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru in a bribery case. And Africa's largest innovation event returns to Lagos. The city hosts tech enthusiasts from around the world to reimagine innovation and renew a collective commitment to bring ideas and prosperity to the continent.

One week after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, US enterprise software giant Oracle has suspended its Russian operations, while Amazon is pledging logistical and cybersecurity support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia's sovereign credit rating has been slashed to junk status by two major ratings agencies and the Moscow Stock Exchange is closed for a fourth consecutive day. We also take a closer look at how the US and EU are working on measures to make sure cryptocurrencies are not used to circumvent sanctions on Russia.

The European Commission and the UK's Market Authority each launched an investigation to see if a 2018 deal between Google and Meta aimed at distorting competition in the digital ad business.

The #TechForUkraine campaign hopes to match aid groups with IT companies willing to help for free. The focus is both on the distribution of material aid and on the helping against Russian cyberattacks.