A billionaire is indicted on charges of tax evasion and wire fraud, Zoom launches a new service, and a report shows Oracle’s CEO donated $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Sen. Lindsey Graham shortly after the TikTok deal.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Monday, October 19, and I’m your host Alex Coop.
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A billionaire chief executive of an Ohio-based software company has been indicted on charges of tax evasion and wire fraud. Conducted between 1999 and 2019, according to court documents, Robert Brockman of Reynolds and Reynolds Co. hid roughly $2 billion in offshore accounts through money laundering. Brockman also tampered with the evidence of his alleged activities. ZDNet reported that A federal grand jury in San Francisco, California has issued a 39-count indictment, including seven counts of tax evasion, 20 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, evidence tampering, and destruction of evidence.
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Virtual concerts, online conferences and bar-hosted happy hours may soon have a paywall after Zoom announced it will allow businesses to charge admission for their virtual events. The video-conferencing giant says it’s not taking a cut of ticket sales for now. Users will need a paid subscription and be based in the U.S., to use the new feature. A global rollout is expected in 2021.
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And lastly, a new report says the top executive at one of the nation’s leading software companies gave a quarter of a million dollars to a PAC supporting Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) while he was brokering a deal between TikTok and a U.S.-based cloud computing company. The Verge says documents from the Federal Election Commision show Ellison made the $250,000 donation to the Security is Strength PAC on September 14th. Sen. Graham was reportedly pivotal in arranging the deal between TikTok and Oracle. Social media chatter has since skyrocketed, most of it focused on whether or not senator Graham had any influence of a specific company during negotiations.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening.