*By Alisha Haridasani and Jacqueline Corba*
European lawmakers aggressively questioned Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, indicating they may consider further restricting the social media company's unchecked growth and regulating its business practices.
Zuckerberg, meeting publicly with members of the European Parliament in Brussels, again apologized for the company's failure to protect the personal data of millions of Facebook users from a third-party app that shared their information with the British research firm Cambridge Analytica.
"We haven't done enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm," Zuckerberg said Tuesday, echoing the apology he offered Congress in testimony last month in Washington. "That was a mistake."
But European lawmakers were even more confrontational than their American counterparts, piling questions on Zuckerberg over Facebook's failure to combat fake news, thwart foreign interference in democratic elections, and limit the access of private data collected from its users.
"They asked very intelligent questions that were drawn from the hearings in the Senate and the House of Representatives, building on them in very interesting ways," said Adi Robertson, a senior reporter for The Verge.
A German member of the European Parliament asked pointedly about Facebook’s market share, and whether it should be subject to [antitrust regulations](https://www.c-span.org/video/?446000-1/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-eu-lawmakers), a common theme in Tuesday's questions.
“It is time to discuss breaking Facebook’s monopoly because it’s already too much power in only one hand?” said Manfred Weber, the head of the European Parliament’s majority party, the European People's Party.
Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgium leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, suggested the company should consider splitting up WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. “Could you or would you cooperate with the European antitrust authorities?” he asked Zuckerberg.
This line of questioning about Facebook's monopoly position was very "aggressive," said Roberson.
After all of the lawmakers asked their questions, Zuckerberg chose a few to answer at the end of the session, and he vowed to respond to the rest with written statements. With so many of their questions unanswered and no time remaining, the meeting bizarrely descended into back-and-forth bickering among lawmakers over the flawed format of the hearing.
"It seems like even people who were there on the floor were sort of baffled by the choice of panel," said Robertson.
Zuckerberg's questioning took place days before Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, goes into effect. The new law, one of the most sweeping privacy protection laws in the world, requires all companies to share how online user data is used and offer users the option to delete their data. Companies that fail to comply can be fined up to 4 percent of their global revenue.
Zuckerberg said Tuesday that Facebook would extend to users elsewhere in the world the same data privacy protections that European citizens will have under the new law.
“At the heart of Europe’s new data protection law, the GDPR, are three important principles: control, transparency, and accountability,” he said. “We’ve always shared these values.”
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/zuckerberg-testifies-to-european-parliament).
Driver assistance monitoring systems are meant to keep the driver's eyes on the road, but according to a report from AAA, different ways of monitoring provide significantly different results. The study found that direct camera-based systems that scanned the driver's eye movements were faster and more reliable than those indirect systems that looked at steering-wheel input. Megan McKernan, the manager of automotive services for the Automobile Club of Southern California, joined Cheddar to discuss the findings. "Triple-A is recommending that automakers include both direct and indirect systems just to really prevent consumers from trying to misuse these systems," she said, noting that neither system on its own is not foolproof.
Pinterest recently added augmented reality to its portfolio. The image sharing and social media platform's new e-commerce tech will allow consumers to interact with retailers and visualize online products inside their homes.
Wave Neuroscience is a neurological health tech company that specializes in clinical and at-home personalized brain stimulation technology. Erik Won, president and chief medical officer and Fred Walke, CEO, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss their company's hopes for allowing patients to identify and treat unique brain disorders while empowering them to understand their unique neurological makeups — including for the high-stress positions of professional athletes. "We have a mobile device that provides a very light stimulation that gives them a therapy that gives them confidence so there's a just knowing that they're doing something for it," said Walke. "But it also helps them get back into a rhythm. It helps their brain synchronize around certain frequencies that that we target, and it helps them really understand that they've done everything they can to get to their highest level of success."
Logitech posted better-than-expected earnings in its third quarter, reporting sales of $1.63 billion dollars, down 2% from the year ago quarter, but well ahead of the Wall Street consensus of $1.48 billion dollars. The PC and gaming peripherals company also raised its annual guidance for both sales and profitability. Bracken Darrell, Logitech CEO, joined Cheddar to break down his reaction to the results, how the pandemic played a role in its growth, and where he wants to take the company next.
GM is scheduled to report its Q4 earnings after the bell on Tuesday February 1. Wall Street expects a miss as the automaker navigates the global chip shortage, which has hit car sales hard. Investors are looking for an update on production, as well as outlook for the electric vehicles that GM is investing billions to bring to market. Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iseecars.com, joined Cheddar to give a preview of the automaker's report.
Recent data reveals that streaming giants are struggling to retain subscribers in the months following a major release.
According to data from Antenna, subscriber trends show that users will subscribe to a given streaming service just to watch a particular show, and then cancel those subscriptions shortly after. This comes as the streaming space continues to heat up as new entrants crowd the space. Jon Christian, Founding Partner + Digital Supply Chain Leader at OnPrem joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
As airlines continues to face massive pilot shortages, United Airlines is opening a training academy for future pilots. United projects that the academy will train around 5,000 new pilots by 2030. David Slotnick, Senior Aviation Business Reporter at The Points Guy joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
Stocks opening mostly higher to close out a wild week on Wall Street. It comes as investors continue to digest comments from the Federal Reserve, as well as the latest slew of earnings. Gene Goldman, Chief Investment Officer at Cetera, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
