Author: Chris Kodo

Equifax wrote that “there was no shift in the vast majority of scores” and that “credit reports were not affected.” But the company declined to comment to CNN Business about how people can learn whether they were among those whose credit scores were incorrectly reported — and what recourse they may have if they were issued loans at a higher rate or denied a loan outright because of the snafu.

Equifax issued its statement later Tuesday, hours after the Wall Street Journal published a report about the errors. Trade publication National Mortgage Professional had reported in May that Equifax was warning lenders about the possibility of incorrect scores, and the company released a statement to the magazine at the time acknowledging the technology-based error.

Tuesday’s disclosure about the score errors comes just after Equifax said its board voted to give CEO Mark Begor a $25 million retention bonus package.

Last Friday’s regulatory filing announcing the bonus said the board believes Boger is “uniquely qualified to continue to lead the Company during the final stages of our $1.5 billion technology transformation.”

Equifax tracks the credit history of millions of borrowers — almost all Americans — and sells that information to banks and other lenders. As one of only three major credit reporting companies, Equifax plays an outsized role in the credit-score business: Its information helps lenders set interests for borrowers or deny borrowers seeking mortgages, car loans or credit cards.

This isn’t the first data issue for Equifax. In 2017, the company revealed that the personal information of nearly 150 million people was compromised. The company eventually reached a deal to pay up to $700 million to state and federal regulators to settle probes related to the incident, the largest settlement ever paid for a data breach.

Tinder chief executive Renate Nyborg is leaving the firm less than a year after becoming the boss of the dating app.

Her exit was one of a number of management changes at Tinder announced by parent company Match Group.

Tinder’s plans to adopt new technology, including virtual currencies and metaverse-based dating, are also being reviewed in the strategic shake-up.

The announcements came as Match reported second-quarter results that missed Wall Street expectations.

“Today we’re announcing the departure of Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg, and I have made some changes to the management team and structure that I am confident will help deliver Tinder’s full potential,” Match Group chief executive Bernard Kim said in a letter to shareholders.

Mr Kim will take up the role vacated by Ms Nyborg while the company looks for a permanent chief executive for Tinder.

“I have loved every moment of the last two years, working with an I.N.C.R.E.D.I.B.L.E team on the magic of human connection,” Ms Nyborg said in a LinkedIn post.

The announcement also included the reorganisation of Tinder’s top management team as well as a review of plans for rolling out new technology.

“After seeing mixed results from testing Tinder Coins, we’ve decided to take a step back and re-examine that initiative… we also intend to do more thinking about virtual goods,” Mr Kim added.

It came as Match – which also owns the dating apps OkCupid, Hinge and Plenty of Fish – said it expects sales in the three months to the end of September to be between $790m to $800m.

That was well below Wall Street expectations and would mean the company would see no sales growth for the period.

Mr Kim pointed to the impact of the pandemic on people’s willingness to start using dating apps and currency fluctuations for the disappointing figures.

“While people have generally moved past lockdowns and entered a more normal way of life, their willingness to try online dating products for the first time hasn’t yet returned to pre-pandemic levels,” he said.

Match Group shares fell by more than 20% in after-hours trade in New York on Tuesday.

Ms Nyborg became Tinder’s first female chief executive in September last year.

Mr Kim was appointed as Match’s chief executive in May after his predecessor Shar Dubey stepped down after just over two years in the role.

Source: BBC

The company added it has created a “cybersecurity transformation office” reporting to CEO Mike Sievert and hired cybersecurity firm Mandiant as well as consulting firms Accenture and KPMG “to design strategies and execute plans” to improve its cybersecurity posture.

T-Mobile expects the settlement to be approved in December at the earliest, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, though it cautioned that appeals or other proceedings could result in delays.

NASA posted a public notice online on Tuesday that laid out a handful of updated requirements for future private astronaut missions, which the agency said are based on lessons learned upon completion of the first private astronaut mission to the ISS that took place last April. The first all-private mission to the orbiting laboratory was a multi-million dollar journey organized by Texas-based startup Axiom Space and launched via a SpaceX rocket, with a crew comprised of a former NASA astronaut and current Axiom Space employee, Michael López-Alegría, and three ultra-wealthy paying crewmembers.

Late last year, SpaceX launched the Inspiration4 mission, which was bankrolled by billionaire Jared Isaacman and had a four-person crew composed entirely of people without any prior spaceflight experience. This private mission, however, simply took a three-day spin around Earth in a SpaceX dragon capsule and did not dock at the ISS.

Axiom has already stated that its second private astronaut mission to the ISS, dubbed AX-2 and expected to launch next year, will have former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson as a mission commander.

During remarks at the annual International Space Station Research and Development Conference last week, López-Alegría spoke about how he became mission commander for the AX-1 flight, saying he initially didn’t expect to return to space after retiring from NASA.

When Axiom was looking for customers, however, “It became pretty clear, first of all, that customers really didn’t want to fly with nobody who’d done it before,” he said. It also became apparent, he said, “NASA was a lot more comfortable having someone who’d been there before.”

“We were having a meeting and we looked around the room and I was the only guy who’d been to space, so I raised my hand. I volunteered,” López-Alegría quipped at the conference.

NASA is also adding additional requirements that appear to be a result of new information learned from the AX-1 mission. Future private missions to the space station will include more time for “microgravity adaptation,” as the floating environment of the ISS can often induce space sickness, which is akin to motion sickness.

The federal space agency will also be introducing clarifications to the ISS code of conduct for commercial visitors, requirements for more detailed plans regarding crew interactions with the media, as well as a requirement for additional time to evaluate research proposals before they are brought on board.

Larry Connor, an AX-1 crewmember, told CNN in April that he and his crewmates were pressed for research time on the ISS.

“If it were not for the NASA’s Crew-3 astronauts, and their phenomenal help, we would never – underscore the word never – have been able to accomplish all of our objectives,” Connor said at the time. “We underestimated the time on some of the projects. We had one project early on that we thought was two-and-a-half hours take five hours.”

A NASA rep did not immediately respond to CNN Business’ request for further comment on the new requirements. They come, however, as the private spaceflight industry has officially lifted off after decades of people largely having to rely on government agencies and the extraordinarily selective astronaut hiring process if they wanted to go to space. Now, those who seek to leave Earth’s surface simply must have the means to pay for it.

While Axiom did not publicly disclose how much its first cohort of private astronauts shelled out for the AX-1 mission, the Washington Post reported that each crew member dished out $55 million for the flight.

Source:  CNN

Uber’s business offers a unique window into consumer trends more than two years into the pandemic which initially decimated demand for travel (hurting Uber’s Rides business) and accelerated adoption of online food delivery (helping its Eats business). During the previous quarter ending in March, the company reported that its Rides bookings had exceeded pre-pandemic levels and delivery bookings were up 12% year-over-year.

Uber has continued to push its delivery offerings. Late last month, Uber announced a new grocery ordering service. While ordering groceries through Uber Eats has been available on the platform for two years, the update includes new options to incentivize use, such as advanced scheduling of deliveries, live order tracking and product replacements recommendations.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement accompanying the results Tuesday that the company “delivered balanced growth” and did so “on a platform that’s larger than ever, with the number of consumers and earners using Uber now both at all-time highs.”

“No one wishes for a tough economic environment or elevated inflation that’s affecting so many of us, including Uber drivers,” Khosrowshahi added on a conference all with analysts Tuesday. But he said the economic environment has allowed Uber to show its strengths.

Shares of Uber jumped more than 15% in early trading Tuesday following the results.

Uber’s results come as much of the tech industry is turning to hiring freezes and layoffs in an effort to weather a financial downturn marked by soaring inflation, rising interest rates, fears of a looming recession as well as the fallout from war in Ukraine.

Khosrowshahi told staff in May that the company would cut costs and rethink its approach to hiring amid a “seismic shift” in the market. On the call Tuesday, Khosrowshahi stressed that the company can be, and has been, diligent about its expenses and still continue to grow. He also noted that Uber benefits not only from its size but also from its range of business offerings.

“When we look at the competitive environment, this is the strongest we felt competitively globally since Nelson and I probably started here,” Khosrowshahi said, referring to himself and the company’s CFO, Nelson Chai. Khosrowshahi has been at the helm of Uber since 2017.

In a striking departure from the growth-at-all-costs model Uber popularized years ago, Khosrowshahi also noted: “You can’t spend your way to glory in any business.”

Khosrowshahi said Uber has been able to “apply discipline” as it makes improvements to the platform to serve drivers better. That includes better onboarding to make it easier for workers to sign up and an easier way to toggle between driving and delivering. “Right now, the machine is working,” he said.

Last week, Uber announced it would expand its Upfront Fares feature to more cities in the United States to give drivers more information about earnings and the customer’s destination before accepting a ride. Khosrowshahi said on the call that this feature is one of the top requests from drivers, while noting that “there’s a lot of algorithmic work that has to go into pricing that trip properly.”