Tausi Insider

Alphabet’s GOOGL-Q Google will pay $391.5 million to settle allegations by 40 states that the search and advertising giant illegally tracked users’ locations, the Michigan attorney general’s office said Monday. The investigation and settlement, which was led by Oregon and Nebraska, is a sign of mounting legal headaches for the tech giant from state attorneys general who have aggressively targeted the firm’s user tracking practices in recent months. In addition to the payment, Google must be more transparent with consumers about when location tracking is occurring and give users detailed information about location-tracking data on a special web page, the Iowa attorney general’s office said. “When consumers make the decision to not share location data on their devices, they should be able to trust that a company will no longer track their every move,” Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said in a statement. “This settlement makes it clear that companies must be transparent in how they tra...

Hydro One workers inside the massive transmission station near Leamington on Nov. 28, 2019. Glenn Lowson/Tausi Insider Rising interest rates and rocky markets are disasters for growth stocks, but they are a blessing for Hydro One H-T. Ontario’s electricity distributor is thriving amid all the uncertainty – a reminder that sometimes, with the right conditions, being boring is beautiful. To be clear, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the transmission utility. Crucially, Hydro One has endured constant upheaval in its executive ranks – last week the company named its third chief executive officer in five years – and prepandemic, its shares suffered following heavy government interference in its business affairs. But lately investors can’t get enough of Hydro One. At a time when rival utilities are struggling, partly because rising rates make many dividend-paying companies look less attractive, Hydro One has found a way to keep shareholders enamoured. Its shares are back near the r...