6 Most Important Things in Business Today

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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6 Most Important Things in Business Today

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) said data leaks could have hit 87 million people, up from 50 million in earlier estimates. According to Reuters:

Facebook Inc said on Wednesday the personal information of up to 87 million users, mostly in the United States, may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, up from a previous news media estimate of more than 50 million.

Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) and Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE: DAL) were hit by data breaches. According to Reuters:

 Department store chain Sears Holding Corp and Delta Air Lines Inc said on Wednesday some of their customer payment information may have been exposed in a cyber security breach at software service provider [ 24]7.ai.

Sears said it was notified of the incident in mid-March and the incident led to unauthorized access to the credit card information of under 100,000 of its customers.

Technology firm [ 24]7.ai, which provides online support services for Delta, Sears and Kmart among other companies, found that a cyber security incident affected online customer payment information of its clients, it said.

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Car companies are killing some car models as drivers move toward sport utility vehicles, trucks and crossovers. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Long thought to be necessary for combating Japanese rivals and catering to budget-minded or young customers, small cars have fallen out of favor amid low gasoline prices and efficiency improvements in SUVs. Now, large sedans also are on the chopping block.

General Motors Co. will end production of the Chevrolet Sonic subcompact as early as this year, according to people familiar with the matter. GM is also considering discontinuing the Chevy Impala big sedan in the next few years, these people said, a decision that would kill a 61-year-old car model.

Ford Motor Co., meanwhile, plans to stop building the Fiesta small car for the U.S. market within the next year, and will discontinue the large Taurus sedan, said people briefed on the plans.

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) management weighed in on the possible China trade war with the United States. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Boeing Co. said Wednesday it would engage in talks with the U.S. and China in an effort to prevent their trade spat from harming the global aerospace industry.

Proposed tariffs on imports of Boeing Co. jets to China would catch a sliver of the aerospace giant’s products, but investors on Wednesday continued to dump the stock amid concerns about a broader global trade war.

Facebook said some of the data from its 2 million users could be compromised. According to Bloomberg:

Facebook Inc. said data on most of its 2 billion users could have been accessed improperly, giving fresh evidence of the ways the social-media giant failed to protect people’s privacy while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the information.

The company said it removed a feature that let users enter phone numbers or email addresses into Facebook’s search tool to find other people. That was being used by malicious actors to scrape public profile information, it said.

Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) admitted it has done a poor job supporting minorities and women. According to CNBC:

Nike “has failed to gain traction” in hiring and promoting more women and minorities to senior-level positions, according to a memo Nike’s HR Chief sent to employees on Wednesday.

The announcement came just a couple weeks after allegations of inappropriate workplace behavior led to changes in the executive ranks at Nike.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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