
Tesla Comes Under More Regulatory Scrutiny -- Tech Roundup
Another day, another issue for Tesla Motors (TSLA) - Get Report . For the record, in case CEO Elon Musk is reading, I happen to love Tesla. The cars are beautiful and it's hard to argue with a vision quite as good as this one. With that being said, it's been tough sledding for the company as of late.
Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Tesla and whether the company failed to disclose the May Autopilot crash that resulted in the death of the driver. The automaker considered the incident non-material, which is why it didn't disclose it immediately.
Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wants more information on the crash as well. In fact, it has requested data "on all crashes that happened because its system did not work as expected," according to SiliconValley.com.
The automaker has until August 26 to comply. Not complying could result in a fine up to $21,000 per day, up to $105 million. Given that Tesla is a young automaker by historical measures, I doubt it wants to absorb a $100 million fine any time soon.
While Autopilot is technically an assist feature as opposed a full on self-driving car feature, you can bet regulators are going to want to make sure consumers are safe when behind the wheel.
This brings into question the dependency on self-driving units. On the one hand, fatal accidents can happen. There's simply too many people on the road and too many one-time incidents engineers can't plan for.
With that being said, if the system is safer in the end, shouldn't we use it? That's the debate.
Shares of Tesla closed at $224.65 Tuesday, down 0.05%.
Twitter (TWTR) - Get Report is keeping the live-streaming deals coming. After live-streaming a part of the Wimbledon tennis tournament and announcing a deal to stream some of this season's National Football League games, the social media company has, at least for now, one more live-streaming announcement: it plans to stream shows from Bloomberg.
Like with the NFL, Twitter will share a portion of the revenues received from advertisers with Bloomberg. However, the company will not stream all of its shows. Instead, it will broadcast "Bloomberg West," "What'd You Miss?" and "With All Due Respect."
SunTrust analyst Bob Peck, who's well respected when it comes to technology and social media stocks, said a 2016 acquisition of Twitter is unlikely. He also said the company's recent initiatives haven't been enough to substantially improve user growth.
While that may be true in the short-term, apparently investors are thinking differently. Either they believe that CEO Jack Dorsey's improvements will lead to stronger user growth and engagement (and thus better ad sales and earnings), or they think the stock is a buyout candidate.
It's what's moved the stock higher by almost 30% in the past month. Will the live-streaming deals continue come? Given Facebook's (FB) - Get Report emphasis on live video and Twitter's recent deals, the answer seems to be yes. Will it help improve Twitter's situation? That's what we're waiting to see.
Shares of Twitter closed $18.10 Tuesday, up 2.2%.
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Tisk-tisk, Warner Brothers. The entertainment company which sits under parent company Time Warner (TWX) , reportedly paid YouTube stars tens of thousands of dollars in 2014 to promote video game "Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor."
The FTC didn't think it was too clever, or cute. It wasn't so much the use of YouTube stars that caused the issue. Rather, it was the failure to properly disclose it. Rather than labeling content as paid-advertising, Warner Brothers instead had the users slip the disclose into the video's description box.
Another oops? As if putting it in the description box wasn't bad enough, most of the disclosures were inserted in a manner that left them invisible to users unless they clicked on the "Show More" tab to see the full disclosure.
The FTC went on to explain that, "in addition, when influencers posted YouTube videos on Facebook or Twitter, the posting did not include the "Show More" button, making it even less likely that consumers would see the sponsorship disclosures."
While Warner Bros. wasn't the company reaching out to YouTube stars directly (it used a separate firm instead), this is still a big whoops.
Shares of Time Warner closed at $78.26 Tuesday, down 0.15%.
This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.









