Wednesday newspaper round-up: Amazon, Google Chrome, Mike Ashley, Pfizer
A radical overhaul of Britain’s economy as far-reaching as Labour’s post-war reforms and the Thatcherite revolution in the 1980s is needed to address the UK’s chronic failure to raise the standard of living of millions of workers since the 2008 financial crash, according to a major report. In a damning verdict on the state of the UK economy, the IPPR commission on economic justice, which includes the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, senior business leaders and economists, found that the UK is being held back by a business culture dominated by decades of short-term profit taking, weak levels of investment and low wages. – Guardian
Amazon has become the second company to be valued by Wall Street at $1tn, a matter of weeks after Apple reached the milestone first. On Tuesday, a rise in the share price of Amazon, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the US, briefly took it above the trillion-dollar watermark for the first time. Crossing the $1tn threshold marks the latest chapter in an astonishing story of growth for the company, founded by businessman Jeff Bezos in Seattle in 1994. - Guardian
Millions of British households could be left vulnerable to a glitch in the Google Chrome web browser which has exposed their household Wifi networks to a new form of hacking, researchers have claimed. A weakness in the source code contained in the US tech giant's popular browser means that hackers could infiltrate the Wifi networks of British homes in as little as one minute, according to experts from cybersecurity consultancy SureCloud. – Telegraph
Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley has taken a further swipe at former House of Fraser chairman Frank Slevin, accusing him of retaining a company car and flat as the retailer collapsed. The tracksuit tycoon bought troubled department store chain House of Fraser out of administration for £90m in August, vowing to transform it into the “Harrods of the High Street”. However, he has been locked in a standoff with warehouse operator XPO over the £30.4m it was owed when House of Fraser went bust. – Telegraph
Pfizer is to spend about $100 million on preventive Brexit measures such as transferring product testing and licences from the UK to other European countries. The American pharmaceuticals group said that it also would accumulate one-off costs from updating its clinical trial management procedures and making other “adaptations” to protect its business in Europe. Pfizer, which is valued at $243 billion, makes about 2 per cent of its $52.5 billion worldwide revenue in the UK. The company has long enjoyed a close relationship with Britain and discovered Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug, at its research site in Sandwich, Kent. – The Times
Companies using NHS patient records to build the next generation of healthcare tools will have to demonstrate that any commercial gains they make are shared “fairly” with the NHS, ministers will say today. The Department for Health has drawn up a code of conduct for technology firms that use the NHS’s “unique” data to train their algorithms. – The Times