Facebook had data-sharing partnership with 52 tech firms
San Francisco, July 1 : Facebook entered into data-sharing partnership with 52 technology companies, including Chinese companies like Alibaba, Huawei, Lenovo and Oppo, the social networking giant said in its latest response to Energy and Commerce Committee of the US House of Representatives.
In its 747-page response to questions raised by the committee, Facebook said it had already ended partnerships with 38 of them with seven more due to expire in July and one more in October this year, Engadget reported on Saturday.
However, Facebook said that three partnerships - involving Apple, Amazon and Tobii, an accessibility app that enables people with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) to access Facebook - are due to continue beyond October this year.
Facebook said that it implemented tougher sharing controls in 2014 and gave third-party app developers one year of time to comply with the new rules.
However, 61 companies got as much as six months of extra time to wind down their data collection practices, the report said.
There are concerns Facebook has been using semantics to share data beyond a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) consent decree requiring the site to obtain permission before collecting more data than a person's privacy settings allow, the Engadget report said.
But in its new response, Facebook claimed that it was not violating the decree.
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Karnataka new excise policy: Local liquor to get costlier, premium may get cheaper
Bengaluru: The state government on Monday rolled out a new excise policy that shifts from the decades-old bulk litre-based system to a model based on alcohol content in beverages, Deccan Herald reported.
Karnataka becomes the first state in India to adopt this model. The change is expected to make lower-priced liquor costlier, while some premium brands may see a reduction in prices.
A senior Excise Department official said: “The policy is being implemented from today (May 11). The Karnataka Excise (Excise Duty and Charges) (2nd Amendment) Rules, 2026, notified after a public consultation on a draft released on April 18, slashes the number of excise slabs from 16 to 8.”
Local liquor manufacturers have alleged that the policy favours multinational companies producing beer and spirits over domestic distilleries.
According to the Karnataka Brewers and Distillers Association (KBDA), the first five slabs, which cater to the common man, house the maximum number of state-owned distilleries and contribute nearly 70-75% of the state’s excise revenue, have seen their Additional Excise Duty (AED) rise by 20-30%.
In contrast, slabs 6 to 8, which include products from multinational companies such as United Spirits, Bacardi, Heineken, Carlsberg, and Anheuser-Busch, have seen AED reduced by 10-15%. The association said that while larger companies can absorb pricing shifts across their diverse portfolios, smaller regional distilleries limited to budget liquor may face volume contraction and potential closure.
A senior KBDA member said the price of a 180 ml bottle in the lowest slab, which was around Rs 63 last year, has already risen to Rs 80, and the new policy is set to push that price further to Rs 105 a jump driven by a 42.8% tax bracket.
