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Microsoft’s bid for Activision gets UK approval, removing last hurdle to the deal_我的网站

一 |     LONDON -- Microsoft’s purchase of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard won final approval Friday from Britain’s competition watchdog, reversing its earlier decision to block the $69 billion gaming deal and removing the final obstacle for one of the largest tech transactions in history.The Xbox maker’s quest to acquire Activision — maker of other blockbuster games like Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch — could close imminently ahead of a Wednesday deadline. That would wrap up a merger delayed for close to two years by intense scrutiny from authorities around the world.The blessing from the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority was expected after it gave preliminary approval last month to a revamped Microsoft proposal meant to address concerns that the deal would harm competition and hurt gamers, especially in the emerging cloud gaming market where players can avoid buying pricey consoles and stream games to their tablets or phones. “The new deal will stop Microsoft from locking up competition in cloud gaming as this market takes off, preserving competitive prices and services for UK cloud gaming customers,” the watchdog said. Microsoft was grateful for the “thorough review and decision” on a tie-up that “will benefit players and the gaming industry worldwide,” President Brad Smith said.Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says the game maker looks "forward to becoming part of the Xbox Team.”The deal will benefit gamers and be “productive for the gaming industry as a whole," said Josh Chapman, managing partner at venture capital firm Konvoy, which invests in video game startups.However, it also tilts the “balance of power significantly" in favor of Microsoft, whose Xbox console has lagged behind Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo, said George Jijiashvili, senior principal analyst at tech research and advisory firm Omdia. Microsoft “now has a big opportunity to dictate the future of the games industry,” he said. Since the deal was announced in January 2022, Microsoft has secured approvals from antitrust authorities covering more than 40 countries. Crucially, it got a thumbs-up from the 27-nation European Union after agreeing to allow users and cloud gaming platforms to stream its titles without paying royalties for 10 years.But the deal faced resistance from British and American regulators who worried it would stifle competition in the video game industry. Top rival Sony also feared it would limit PlayStation gamers’ access to Call of Duty, Activision’s long-running military shooter series. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission lost a court bid to pause the deal so that its in-house judge could review it. The FTC hasn't given up, appealing the decision and last month filing notice of its plan to resume that trial. That signals the U.S. regulator's intention to unwind the deal even after it closes. In the meantime, the U.K. regulator was the last major hurdle to the transaction going through. To gets its approval, Microsoft will sell off cloud streaming rights outside the EU and three other European countries for all current and new Activision games released over the next 15 years to French game studio Ubisoft Entertainment. British regulators had initially blocked the transaction over concerns Microsoft could withhold Activision titles from the cloud gaming market. Then, in an unprecedented move, the U.K. watchdog said it needed to reconsider.One factor was the EU’s approval, granted after Microsoft promised to automatically license Activision titles royalty-free to cloud gaming platforms. Another “material change of circumstance,” according to court documents, was an agreement Microsoft signed with Sony to make Call of Duty available on PlayStation for at least 10 years.But the regulator still criticized how the deal came together and warned other companies not to use the “tactics employed by Microsoft.”“Microsoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn’t work,” the watchdog's CEO, Sarah Cardell, said in a statement. "Dragging out proceedings in this way only wastes time and money.”The U.K. regulator “deserves credit for imposing a structural remedy on Microsoft that is significantly stronger than the weak commitments accepted by the European Commission," said Max von Thun, director of the Europe office of the Open Markets Institute, a proponent of stronger antitrust enforcement. But the CMA's flip-flopping makes the U.K. regulator look “weak and indecisive,” he said.“Moving forward, there is now a serious risk that in their dealings with the CMA, merging companies and their advisors will no longer take no for an answer,” von Thun said. ___AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed from Providence, Rhode Island.。    Twitch 和 Amazon 正面临一项集体诉讼，原因是该直播平台推出了一项功能，除非主播手动选择退出，否则系统会自动利用主播的内容来训练其生成式 AI。该设置在上周推出时引发了一波强烈抵制。设置内容显示为：“允许您的频道内容用于训练 Amazon 的生成式 AI 内容模型。

二 | ”这一选项被隐藏在用户的安全和隐私设置中，并且默认自动开启。主播必须手动关闭该选项才能退出——但这并不能阻止 Twitch 将他们的频道内容用于平台《隐私声明》中列出的其他用途。Twitch 支持团队 (@TwitchSupport) 2026年8月12日：     我们添加了一项设置，允许您选择不让您的频道内容被用于训练 Amazon 的生成式 AI 内容模型。    点击此处了解更多信息：/C3G0Jt6m0D仅仅一周后，Amazon 和 Twitch 就在 2026 年 8 月 20 日提交给美国加利福尼亚北区联邦地区法院的一项集体诉讼中被正式列为被告。在长达 37 页的诉状中，原告 Warren Pandiscia——一位拥有 900 多名粉丝的康涅狄格州 Twitch 主播——辩称，Amazon 通过自动将创作者纳入 AI 训练设置，“非法”抓取了创作者的内容，且未经其同意。“被告的行为不仅违法，而且是对内容创作者群体的肆意攻击。这些创作者的内容被用来推动价值数万亿美元的生成式 AI 行业，却未获得任何报酬，”诉状中写道。“像原告和集体成员这样的内容创作者，将永远无法收回被被告非法复制并用于训练 Amazon 生成式 AI 的知识产权。一旦 AI 摄取了内容，该内容就会存储在其神经网络中，无法删除或撤回。被告的行为构成了对内容创作者作品的滥用和剥削，以谋取被告的利益。”诉求的赔偿包括“所有可用的合同赔偿，包括实际赔偿、补偿性赔偿、间接赔偿和名义赔偿，以及法院认为公正合理的其他救济”，但未提及具体金额。就 Twitch 而言，它为其自动将创作者纳入 Amazon AI 训练的立场进行了辩护。在同一天播出的“更新日志（Patch Notes）”直播中，Twitch 首席产品官 Mike Minton 在回答有关该设置的问题时直言不讳地表示：“如果采用‘加入制（opt-in）’，就没有人会加入了。坦白说，这就是答案。”Twitch 的“账号设置常见问题”解释说，它利用用户内容训练 Amazon 的生成式 AI 是为了实现诸如“[完善]语音转文本模型，这将有助于改进 Twitch 的字幕，也有助于改进整个 Amazon 的字幕”以及“AI 支持的功能，如自动为您的剪辑生成字幕，但不会保留您的直播或剪辑来训练可以生成新内容的模型”等功能。截至发稿时，Twitch 尚未对该诉讼提供官方回应。

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