Tik Tok Tax, Dell and Doordash get whacks, Google search shows some cracks: Vertical Hold Ep 442

How is Tik Tok responsible for billions of dollars in tax fraud? Why did Dell and DoorDash cop big fines from Aussie regulators? And why has Google’s search become so awful in an age of AI? Special Guest Pickr’s Leigh Stark!

Vertical Hold is brought to you by Uniden Australia.

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A big week for Australian-centric tech news… though not all of it is good, really. Tik Tok is well known for short, cute video snippets… so how is it central to a multi-BILLION dollar tax fraud?

Meanwhile, Dell’s copped a $10 million fine and DoorDash is out $2 million as regulators get tough on dodgy business dealings… but why?

Finally, Google. And by Google we mean “search”, which is often awful these days. We chat to Leigh Stark from Pickr about why search results can be skewed badly — or in some cases, REALLY badly!

Quite a few matters to link out to here, as well. Alex mentions a story he wrote about Kenya (listen to the show, it’ll make sense) — you can read all about how Google seems to have lost Kenya here.

Alex also mentions why nobody called Zuckerberg should sing. Don’t say we didn’t warn you…

And finally, there’s mention of the one product that has the strangest Amazon reviews…