South Korea fines Google, Meta $71.8m for violating privacy law. 2 other stories and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today

1. South Korea fines Google, Meta $71.8M for violating privacy law

South Korean authority on Wednesday fined Google and Meta ~$71.8 million (100 billion KRW) for breaching the country’s privacy law.

The South Korean authority, The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), disclosed the fine in a statement seen by Ripples Nigeria.

According to the press statement, the watchdog said that Google and Meta did not pass due protocol in the process of collecting information from users frequenting their respective websites.

Ripples Nigeria gathered that PIPC ordered the tech companies to correct the violations and imposed fines of 69.2 billion KRW (~$50 million) on Google and 30.8 billion KRW (~$22 million) on Meta.

Responding to the allegation and fine, a meta spokesperson said:

“While we respect the PIPC’s decision, we are confident that we work with our clients in a legally compliant way that meets the processes required by local regulations.”

The fine is the largest penalty in South Korea for violating personal information protection laws.

Tech Trivia: The way text is represented in binary codes is also known as what?
A. Character setting
B. Character encoding
C. String mapping
D. String compiling
Answer: see end of post

2. B2B cross-border payments firm, Verto, partners Xente

A B2B cross-border payments firm, Verto, has partnered with a multi-currency digital payments platform for African businesses, Xente.

Read also:Zoom set to rival Teams, Slack with new chat product. 2 other stories and a trivia

Diana Mihaylova, vice president for business development at Verto confirmed the partnership deal on Wednesday in a media statement.

Xente bills itself as a FinTech company simplifying finance for businesses in Africa, to offer seamless cross-border payments to Non-Profit Organisations (NGOs) in Uganda.

“We’re building modern banking solutions for all businesses around the world, creating a fairer and more inclusive financial ecosystem for those in underserved regions.

“Through our partnership with Xente, we’re able to support Non-Governmental Organisations with sending and receiving seamless cross-border payments, so they can focus on what matters most,” Mihaylova said.

The partnership is expected to see Verto leverage Xente’s connectivity in Africa.

3. Automaker and a mobility provider, Stellantis, invests in Africar Group to launch Auto24

A leading automaker and a mobility provider, Stellantis, has announced investing in Africar Group to launch Auto24 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Axel Peyriere, co-Founder & CEO of Africar Group confirmed the development in a press release seen by Ripples Nigeria on Wednesday.

Africar Group Pty Ltd is an Australian entity that claims to own, operate and grow the largest network of automotive marketplaces in Africa.

Peyriere, while commenting on the new launch, said:

“After more than five years of working with automotive manufacturers, distributors, and other key players in the industry, we have developed a class-leading, multi-country digital automotive solution across Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Auto24 is being launched today to buttress the confidence of African customers in the used vehicle market.”

Trivia Answer: Character Encoding

While we view text documents as lines of text, computers see them as binary data or a series of ones and zeros.

Therefore, the characters within a text document must be represented by numeric codes. In order to accomplish this, the text is saved using one of several types of character encoding.

By Kayode Hamsat

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