Another fight against the power of AI has emerged in the US.

News Corp’s New York Post and the Dow Jones are suing search AI company Perplexity alleging massive copyright infringement.

Perplexity acts like a search engine and presents results written out in its own words with sources linking to other sites, rather than a string of links like Google. 

The Dow and NYP have said in a federal lawsuit filed on Monday in New York:

“Perplexity attempts to accomplish this by engaging in a massive amount of illegal copying of publishers’ copyrighted works and diverting customers and critical revenues away from those copyright holders.

“This suit is brought by news publishers who seek redress for Perplexity’s brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously freeriding on the valuable content the publishers produce.”

The lawsuit alleges that in July, the companies put Perplexity on notice “… of the legal issues raised by Perplexity’s unauthorized use of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works and offering to discuss a potential licensing deal. Perplexity did not bother to respond.” 

Variety has published a copy of the lawsuit if you want to take a read.

Thanks James! Sorry everyone we had a typo with the Bitcoin price, it’s at $US67,603 – not $US26k! Apologies to the crypto fam.

Thanks for the comment Merrowyn – insurance is really coming under the spotlight right now isn’t it

If you are please feel free to shoot me an email at Clayton.Rachel@abc.net.au as we follow up on the ASIC action being taken against the insurance company.

The National Anti-Scam Centre says it’s detected a new bulk extortion email campaign targeting Australians.

There’s been hundreds of reports to Scamwatch in the past week of people receiving emails from criminals claiming to compromising images or videos by hacking into a computer or webcam.

(I received one of these emails myself!)

There’s no evidence the people sending these emails actually have access to your webcam or computer.

The ACCC’s Catriona Lowe says:

“We are issuing this urgent alert to bring this concerted scam campaign to the attention of the public. While we should always be vigilant about scams, people need to be especially alert to this emerging trend”.

How does it work?

The scammers send an email threatening to release compromising material if they are not paid a certain amount of cryptocurrency to a specified address.

The emails include personal details of the recipients, such as birth dates and addresses, which are provided to make the scam more convincing and intimidate those individuals into sending money.

They likely nabbed your personal details from previous data breaches — of which there have been too many to count

“The fictional threats in these emails combined with the inclusion of people’s personal data are intended to terrify the individual reading it. It’s extortion and it’s a crime,” Ms Lowe said.

“People should ignore these spam emails and be aware that the recent volume of reports of this scam suggest it is a large-scale campaign. The National Anti-Scam Centre is working with partner organisations, including law enforcement and IDCARE, to disrupt this scam and ensure victims have access to support.”

In a statement to the ASX, QBE Insurance (QBE) has acknowledged the action launched today by ASIC in the Federal Court of Australia.

“The proceedings relate to previously reported inconsistencies in the delivery of price promises made to customers with caravan, householders, marine and motor policies issued between 1 July 2017 and 24 September 2022.

“Following an external review of its pricing practices in 2022, QBE has taken steps to address the inconsistencies, reported the issues to ASIC and has co-operated with ASIC’s investigation which has culminated in today’s development.

“QBE has also undertaken a remediation program to remediate impacted customers as announced to the ASX on 19 July 2022.

“QBE apologises for the inconsistencies. QBE understands the importance of meeting its promises to its customers. QBE will review the pleadings and continue to work with ASIC on these matters.”

Governance specialist at Swinburne Law School Helen Bird has penned a piece in the AFR today on two of the biggest scandals in Australia’s finance world recently: Chris Ellison’s alleged offshore tax evasion scheme, and Richard White’s alleged inappropriate conduct with female staff.

She called for Mr Ellison and Mr White to stand aside.

Bird spoke with the ABC’s The Business last night digging into the allegations against Mr Ellison. She said if true, he and his execs “are potentially in breach of some pretty fundamental obligations”.

Check out that interview here:

ASIC has announced it’s taking legal action against QBE Insurance.

The commission has accused the company of misleading customers about discounts on some of its general insurance products.

ASIC says from July 2017 to September 2022, QBE told customers and sent renewal notices that promised discounts on home, contents, and car insurance.

But ASIC says the discounts were often reduced, sometimes to nothing, because of QBE’s pricing model with more than half a million customers affected.

ASIC has filed the case in the Federal Court and will provide an update at 11.30am AEST – we’ll bring you an update then.

There’s still no news when Chinese will hold its National People’s Congress to agree on the details of an economic support package. 

It probably won’t happen until November at this stage.

Usually, the NPC runs for 4 or 5 days and there’s a week’s notice.

CommBank’s morning report says the lack of clarity on the NPC’s timing could pull the Aussie and US dollars up because the longer it takes to announce the NPC dates, the larger the support package being planned. 

It could be delayed until after the US election.

Another Trump presidency raises the chance of another trade war between the two economic giants that could be offset by a large pick‑up in government spending that may favour AUD/USD.  

In case you missed it on The Business last night:

Here’s a great graph from Digital Finance Analytics very clearly showing the trend with retirees and mortgages:

More and more Australians are facing retirement years with mortgage debt, according to census data.

Over the past 20 years, the number of Australians aged 55 to 64 who owned their homes outright had almost halved.

A survey by Digital Finance Analytics found about three-quarters of retirees with a mortgage owe more than they have in superannuation.

And that’s likely to put pressure on the Federal Government’s finances in the long run as more people rely on the age pension to get through their later years.

Read more by yours truly here:

 Tom Piotrowski, senior market analyst at CommSec, spoke with ABC News Radio this morning about what’s happening in the northern hemisphere.

“We’ve seen contained performance. Sellers have tended to have a cautious approach as we move through the end of the week,” he said.

It’s reporting season in the USA and Mr Piotrowski says the looming US election is starting to have a larger effect on “the consciousness of investors”.

“US interest rates are at their highest level in 12 weeks as bond investors take stock of a potential Trump government. Trump is leading in the polls so interest rates are a bit more defensive.”

Last night General Motors had the most improved stock on the S&P 500, he said, after they recorded higher revenue than expected.

GM pointed towards a strong US consumer and its growing EV business moving towards profitability as key reasons behind its strong results.

Tobacco giant Philip Morris also recorded its results, up +9% beating expectations by a considerable margin, Mr Piotrowski said.

Hello and welcome to the Wednesday edition of the ABC finance blog,

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Rachel Clayton from the ABC business unit will take you through the morning covering markets, business, finance and economics news.

The ASX 200 looks set to rise after a sharp fall yesterday, with the futures market tipping the index to lift +0.2% to 8,264-points.

That’s off the back of Wall Street recording its first consecutive decline in six weeks, followed by a rebound.

The blue-chip Dow Jones is up +%0.1% to 42,977-points. The broader S&P 500 is up ever so slightly +0.03% to 5,855-points while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lifted +0.5% to 18,582-points.

Any questions, thoughts or queries pop ’em in the comments!