Welcome to the Tech Mem Right Home for Thursday, August 31st,

2023, I'm Brian McCullough today.

Microsoft unbundles teams to stay ahead of EU antitrust action but is that actually good

for European consumers? Elon wants to collect your biometric data for some

reason. Can AI police online smack-talking in games, lessons from the grocery delivery bubble and

surprise the weekend long read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world

of tech.

Microsoft announced plans to unbundled teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscriptions

across Europe starting on October 1st. They are instead offering teams to

enterprise for $24 a year. This is all to placate EU antitrust concerns.

But listen to the end because I'm not entirely sure this is consumer friendly.

Quoting Bloomberg.

The Redmond-Washington-based firm is trying to avoid formal antitrust charges from the EU and the risk of future

fines following the Block's decision to open a probe in July. EU investigators are examining

whether Microsoft breach competition rules by tying or bundling teams to its Office 365 and

Microsoft 365 packages.

This follows a complaint from Salesforce messaging platform Slack made three years ago end quote and quoting the verge.

The unbundling means that enterprise customers in EU markets will be able to purchase Microsoft

365 subscriptions at a lower monthly price without teams or have to buy a standalone

version of teams at a list price of five euros per month or 60 euros per year.

We will instead simply sell these offerings without teams at a lower price two euros less per month or

24 euros per year Microsoft said in the announcement.

...