Google to pay $36M fine for anticompetitive deals with Australia’s largest telcos

50 years ago, we thought we could change the world

We began as a small loose unorganized group of teaching friends and educators who shared the same political and social convictions.

‘Didn’t realize how close I was’ to getting hit, pedestrian says

A West Broadway pedestrian says it was like a scene straight out of the movies as he narrowly avoided being plowed into during a midday police pursuit.

Adam Orbanski was crossing Langside Street along Broadway Friday and had just made it to the curb when a vehicle slammed into another metres away from him.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Orbanski said Monday after viewing security footage of the incident captured by a nearby business. “I didn’t realize how close I was, I guess, until my friend sent me the security footage. I’m lucky to be alive.”

Orbanski said he was walking home from work when he began to hear sirens. As he crossed Langside, he could see one vehicle approaching him quickly.

Rogers, Telus deny blame for June twister alert barrage

Telecom companies say they aren’t to blame for the barrage of tornado alerts Manitobans received during severe thunderstorms in early June.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced in August it would investigate the unusually high number of alerts, and called on the Pelmorex Corp., which operates the national Alert Ready system, along with telecom companies Bell, Rogers and Telus to respond to a number of questions.

They were given until last Friday to describe their possible roles in the creation, receipt, processing or distribution of alerts issued from Environment and Climate Change Canada in the midst of the June 9 storm.

Telus said in its response that it received 133 alert requests targeted to Manitoba created by Environment Canada and forwarded by Pelmorex between 2:35 p.m. June 9 and 3:29 a.m. the following day. While the majority of those messages contained identical information and were automatically suppressed, 17 were ultimately sent out as alerts in Winnipeg.

Menstruation, consent move up in sex-ed lesson plan

Manitoba’s newest curriculum introduces the menstrual cycle earlier and repeatedly calls for explicit lessons on how students can give, seek, and decline to provide their consent.

The education department has released its sweeping proposal to overhaul how exercise, nutrition and sexuality are taught between kindergarten and Grade 12.

Grade 5 has long served as a key turning point for “the talk,” said J Fiedler, a sexual and reproductive health educator who provided input on the new curriculum.

“There’s no ‘the talk’ anymore. Now, there’s continuations of multiple ‘talks,’ which can hopefully reduce stress for students and stigma that people experience talking about sexuality.”

Google to pay $36M fine for anticompetitive deals with Australia’s largest telcos

MELBOURNE, Austalia (AP) — Google has agreed to pay a 55 million Australian dollar ($36 million) fine for signing anticompetitive deals with Australia’s two largest telcos that banned the installation of competing search engines on some smartphones, the U.S. tech giant and Australia’s competition watchdog said.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said in a statement it had commenced proceedings in the Australian Federal Court on Monday against the Singapore-based Google Asia Pacific division. The court will decide whether the AU$50 million ($36 million) penalty is appropriate.

Under the anticompetitive agreements, which were in place for 15 months until March 2021, Telstra and Optus only pre-installed Google Search on Android phones sold to customers. Other search engines were excluded. In return, the telcos received a share of the advertisement revenue Google generated from those customers.

Google accepted that the agreements were likely to have the effect of “substantially lessening competition,” the commission said.

Trade war fuelling spike in city costs

A trade war between the U.S. and Canada could cost the City of Winnipeg millions of dollars more than was anticipated during the budget process for this year’s expenditures and beyond.

The city is at risk of paying up to $4.7 million more for $913.7 million of upcoming construction expenses by the end of 2027, due to the effects of tariffs and counter-tariffs.

The affected projects include part of the massive $3.1-billion North End sewage treatment plant upgrade that is now underway, Paul Beckta, a senior city economist, said during a Monday finance committee meeting.

However, Beckta said those financial concerns will become a reality only if the city keeps the same suppliers and current tariff levels remain in place.