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Time of India
2 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
LinkedIn settles antitrust lawsuit, agrees to contracting changes
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Business social network LinkedIn has agreed to make temporary changes to its contracting practices to settle a lawsuit by U.S. users who claimed it schemed to prevent potential rivals from entering the preliminary class action settlement, which does not include a financial payment, was filed on Friday in the federal court in San Francisco and requires a judge's was accused in the 2022 lawsuit of illegally fashioning some business contracts to bar third-parties from competing with the company, allowing it to overcharge for premium services and upgraded account plaintiffs said LinkedIn, now owned by Microsoft , was "effectively paying potential competitors not to enter the market."LinkedIn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Microsoft was not a defendant. LinkedIn denied any plaintiffs' lawyers declined to the terms of the deal, LinkedIn said for three years it will not enforce provisions in current or future contracts for "application programming interfaces" that would restrict a third-party potential rival from contracts at issue in the lawsuit allowed LinkedIn business partners to access private user data "in exchange for restraints against competing with LinkedIn," according to the settlement plaintiffs said the pause would allow potential rivals to compete more effectively, facilitate reduced prices and increase consumer are about 9 million people in the settlement class, which includes LinkedIn members who purchased LinkedIn Premium services between January 13, 2018, and the present, according to the of the class can opt out of the settlement to sue individually for alleged damages, the settlement plaintiffs said they planned to present expert testimony at the time of final approval to show the overall value of the settlement, since there is no money being paid to LinkedIn plaintiffs' lawyers said they would seek up to $4 million in legal case is Todd Crowder et al v. LinkedIn Corp, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 4: plaintiffs: Yavar Bathaee and Brian Dunne of Bathaee Dunne; Christopher Burke of Burke LLP; and Carol O'Keefe of Korein TilleryFor defendant: Russell Cohen and Julia Chapman of Dechert
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Identity Digital Unveils Strategic Partnerships to Bring Personalized Online Identities to Trusted SaaS Platforms
Creative domain name offerings empower millions of users to take control of their brand identity and amplify their online presence BELLEVUE, Wash., June 03, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Identity Digital®, a leader in connecting the online world with domain names and related technologies, today announced a series of strategic alliances with prominent Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms including LinkedIn Premium, Gravatar, OneFootball powered by D3, and Bitly. These partnerships allow millions of users to utilize Identity Digital's domain name offerings to strengthen their online identities, and develop a consistent and personalized digital brand. According to McKinsey, the global SaaS market could surge to $10 trillion by 2030. Partnering with Identity Digital provides advancing SaaS platforms an opportunity to take advantage of the market's growth potential. Identity Digital offers organizations innovative technology that has the opportunity to increase revenue and retain customers by providing brand personalization through custom domains and web offerings. Partners also benefit from customized plans, effortless implementation and a simplified process for creating online profiles and websites. "Brands are looking for new ways to engage their customers and maintain a competitive edge," said Matt Overman, Chief Revenue Officer at Identity Digital. "These partnerships are developing a new category for business expansion, personalization and visibility. Our partners are excited about the value these integrations will provide and ultimately, the associated growth potential." Based on specific partnerships, this series of alliances will enable SaaS users to take advantage of the following: Gravatar: By linking their Gravatar profiles to unique domain names, users can now enhance their online presence with a more professional and personalized touch. This integration allows for a cohesive and consistent personal identity across various online platforms. OneFootball powered by D3: This partnership facilitates the creation of personalized online destination pages for fans to connect and interact within the OneFootball and D3 networks, bridging Web2 communities with Web3 technologies. With .football domains as its fan identity infrastructure for 180M+ users, this partnership has the potential to unlock growth, engagement, retention, and new revenue streams. Users can now utilize custom domain names for their profiles, further solidifying their online branding and presence. This integration provides a streamlined and experienced way to share multiple links and resources. Bitly: Users create over 250 million short links and QR Codes, driving over 10 billion clicks and scans every month. In partnership with Identity Digital, Bitly enables users to find and claim relevant domains for their short links and QR Codes—increasing brand recognition, boosting click-through rates and maximizing the impact of every connection point. "Identity Digital's domain name offerings have truly elevated our platform. By giving our users access to personalized domains, we're helping them take real ownership of their online identity," said Ronnie Burt, Head of Gravatar. "Since launching this partnership, we've seen a clear uptick in engagement — users with custom domains share and do more with their profiles — and we're confident that these domain options will continue to bring meaningful value to our users, especially when it comes to building and maintaining a consistent presence online." "We are continuously seeking new ways to innovate and offer our customers increased personalization options," said Sabrina Stefani, Co-Founder and CEO at "Identity Digital's domain name offerings like .bio are instrumental in setting up our customers for success as they look to establish the perfect domain for their link in bio. We look forward to creating even more value on our platform with this strategic alliance." To learn more about partnering with Identity Digital, please contact us at partners@ About Identity Digital Identity Digital Inc. simplifies and connects the online world with domain names and related technologies to empower people to build, market, and own their authentic digital identities. With the world's largest portfolio of TLDs including .info, .pro, .world, and .studio, Identity Digital supports over 28 million domains on its innovative registry services platform. In addition, Identity Digital enables customers to discover, register, support and use high-quality domain names with its registrar, Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, Identity Digital is a global company with approximately 250 employees. For more information, please visit View source version on Contacts Media Amanda McMillen, Identity Inkhouse for Identity Digitalidentitydigital@ Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
02-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
LinkedIn Launches AI Job Search Tool For Premium Users
AI is not just reinventing jobs, its reinventing the job search process as LinkedIn launches a new ... More feature for premium users. Job hunting has always involved more friction than most people care to admit. Between vague job descriptions, filter-heavy search tools, and endless scrolling, even well-qualified candidates often struggle to find roles that fit. LinkedIn is betting that AI can fix that. Since May, LinkedIn Premium users have had access to a newly overhauled, AI-powered job search feature that aims to simplify and personalize the way people find work. Built using large language models, the new search tool lets users skip the clunky filters and instead describe what they want in natural language — like 'remote marketing jobs in climate tech that don't require managing a team.' The AI interprets the intent, scans available listings, and returns results tailored to that request. This isn't just a cosmetic update. As Wenjing Zhang, LinkedIn's vice president of engineering, explained in her recent post announcing the release, the goal was to create AI that's fast, scalable and relevant. That last word — relevant — is doing a lot of work in an environment where job seekers are bombarded by scams, outdated listings and ghost recruiters. "One of the biggest changes we've made with our new AI-powered Job Search is to bring more transparency to the job search and recommendations,' said Erran Berger, LinkedIn's vice president of product engineering, in an email reply. 'For example, when a member views a job, they can quickly see how their profile and qualifications match the job requirements. It helps job seekers to be more strategic in their search.' That shift from guesswork to guided strategy is made possible by a 'closed-loop' system that continually improves based on real user feedback. According to Berger, his team reviews both engagement metrics and verbatim user comments weekly, which feed into a set of 'product policies' — a relevance rubric crafted by LinkedIn's jobs experts. These policies help the LLMs grade the quality of search results before they ever reach a user. To ensure those grades aren't biased or broken, every major model goes through pre-launch 'red teaming' — a form of stress testing to identify blind spots. LinkedIn also runs member searches through trust filters to catch potentially harmful or spammy queries. The goal isn't just accuracy. It's integrity. LinkedIn's new AI job search enhancement for premium users relies on natural language processing ... More instead of vague job description guessing. That integrity is visible in other features as well, such as 'Job Match,' which clearly outlines why a particular job was recommended. 'We give job seekers the insights they need — from personalized recommendations to hiring insights — to make smarter, more confident decisions,' Berger wrote. Importantly, users aren't locked into a one-size-fits-all funnel. Berger emphasized that personalization doesn't mean constraint. 'We design our job recommendation systems to empower job seekers while helping them discover new possibilities. Users always retain control over what jobs they search for and apply to," he added. That balance between surprise and control is more than an user experience flourish. It's also a way to empower job seekers. 'This approach not only helps seekers explore new possibilities with confidence, but also enables employers to discover great candidates from non-traditional paths — creating a win-win for both the hirer and the job seeker,' Berger explained. For those who might not know the correct keywords or exact job titles to search for, the AI can serve as a job-hunting sherpa — turning a vague career itch into a concrete list of leads. According to LinkedIn, 40% of job seekers are applying less to job listings or giving up entirely and another 40% are exploring other avenues to try and improve their odds of getting hired. What makes this rollout notable isn't just the tech, but the cross-functional coordination behind it as well as a commitment to real results. 'While we track short-term signals — like job views, saves and applications — we place equal weight on longer-term outcomes, such as whether job posters follow up, interviews progress, and ultimately, whether people get hired,' he noted. That kind of long-game thinking may be what distinguishes this LinkedIn tool from the sea of AI add-ons flooding the job market. 'Our priority is to solve problems for our members and customers. That's why we build our AI-powered products ultimately to add value to our members and customers and help them achieve their goals more effectively and efficiently. More than 90% of those who have tested our AI-powered job features have found them helpful, and early signals from our AI-powered job search are showing similar results,' Berger concluded.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Microsoft Corp (MSFT) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Record Cloud Revenue and AI Growth ...
Revenue: $69.6 billion, up 12% year-over-year. Gross Margin: Increased 13% and 12% in constant currency. Operating Income: Increased 17% and 16% in constant currency. Earnings Per Share (EPS): $3.23, an increase of 10%. Microsoft Cloud Revenue: $40.9 billion, grew 21% year-over-year. AI Business Annual Revenue Run Rate: Surpassed $13 billion, up 175% year-over-year. Commercial Bookings: Increased 67% and 75% in constant currency. Commercial Remaining Performance Obligation: $298 billion, up 34% and 36% in constant currency. Free Cash Flow: $6.5 billion, down 29% year-over-year. LinkedIn Revenue: Increased 9% year-over-year. Dynamics 365 Revenue: Increased 19% and 18% in constant currency. Azure and Other Cloud Services Revenue: Grew 31%, with AI services growing 157% year-over-year. Gaming Revenue: Decreased 7% and 8% in constant currency. Cash Flow from Operations: $22.3 billion, up 18% year-over-year. Return to Shareholders: $9.7 billion through dividends and share repurchases. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with MSFT. Release Date: January 29, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Microsoft Cloud revenue surpassed $40 billion for the first time, growing 21% year-over-year. AI business annual revenue run rate exceeded $13 billion, marking a 175% increase year-over-year. Strong commercial bookings growth of 67% and 75% in constant currency, driven by Azure commitments from OpenAI. Microsoft 365 Copilot saw significant adoption, with customers expanding their seats by more than 10x over the past 18 months. LinkedIn Premium surpassed $2 billion in annual revenue, with subscriber growth increasing nearly 50% over the past two years. Azure non-AI services growth was slightly lower than expected due to go-to-market execution challenges. On-premises server business revenue decreased 3%, slightly below expectations. Enterprise and partner services revenue decreased 1%, below expectations. Gaming revenue decreased 7% and 8% in constant currency, with hardware declines offsetting content and services growth. Free cash flow was down 29% year-over-year, reflecting higher capital expenditures. Q: Can you explain the execution issues with Azure and the outlook for the rest of the year? A: Amy Hood, CFO, explained that the issues were primarily in the non-AI Azure component, particularly with scale motions involving indirect sales methods. Adjustments are being made to balance AI and non-AI workloads. Despite these challenges, AI results exceeded expectations, and confidence remains in AI growth, with capacity constraints expected to ease by year-end. Q: What drove the larger-than-expected Microsoft AI revenue? A: Amy Hood, CFO, highlighted that the outperformance was due to strong Azure AI results and better-than-expected Microsoft Copilot performance. This included growth in both new and expanded seats, increased usage, and favorable price per seat, indicating strong value perception. Q: How is AI scaling impacting costs and efficiency? A: Satya Nadella, CEO, noted that AI scaling laws and software optimizations are significantly improving efficiency, with inference computing costs decreasing. Innovations like DeepSeek contribute to these efficiencies, allowing AI to become more ubiquitous and beneficial for customers, ultimately driving more app development and consumption. Q: What is the strategic decision behind the changes in the OpenAI relationship? A: Satya Nadella, CEO, emphasized that Microsoft remains committed to OpenAI's success, benefiting from their Azure commitments. The focus is on building a fungible fleet that balances training and inference, optimizing for cost and efficiency, and continuously upgrading infrastructure to meet demand. Q: How is the Copilot portfolio evolving to address customer needs? A: Satya Nadella, CEO, discussed recent announcements like Copilot Chat and Copilot Studio, which enhance accessibility and functionality across the installed base. These developments, along with inference cost reductions, are expected to drive broader adoption and usage across Microsoft's portfolio. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
