Posted inOpinion

Zornio: Has Big Tech caught Colorado Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper by the tongue?

These days it’s hard to find bipartisan support for almost anything — it seems even the color of the sky might be up for debate. That’s why it’s all the more impressive that Congress has reached broad bipartisan support for two antitrust reform bills targeting Big Tech. There’s just one small surprise: Among support from […]

Posted inCOVID, News

Remember Colorado’s COVID exposure system for smartphones? It’s getting a lot of use during the recent surge.

As the seemingly never-ending coronavirus pandemic escalated this fall, cellphones in Colorado started buzzing more frequently with an alert: “You may have been exposed.” The state’s opt-in COVID-19 exposure notification system has been around for a year, but a system upgrade — combined with the latest wave of cases — recently made for a busy […]

Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns

Opinion: For Colorado’s small businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic is the wrong time to rein in Big Tech

State Rep. Mark Baisley’s Feb. 7 Colorado Sun op-ed, “It’s time to rein in Big Tech,” misses a fundamental fact — that large digital companies are extraordinarily important to small businesses.  Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, YouTube and many other digital platforms offer free and low-cost small business tools that are critically important, particularly during […]

Posted inBusiness, Crime and Courts, News, Politics and Government, Technology

Colorado spearheads 35-state lawsuit accusing Google of operating a search-engine monopoly

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is taking the lead in a 35-state, bipartisan lawsuit filed Thursday against tech giant Google that accuses the company of “anticompetitive conduct” and monopolistic behavior surrounding its search engine and advertising arm.   The 115-page legal action, which was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., specifically alleges that Google has […]

Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns

Opinion: Embracing technology will propel Colorado’s economic recovery from COVID-19

The year 2020 began with a global pandemic that crippled the economy, upended daily routines, and saw heightened political and cultural tensions.  But all this has made clear that, second to the coronavirus, Colorado’s economic recovery is the top of mind for voters across the state.  With the election behind us, we need political leaders […]

Posted inCOVID, Health, News, Politics and Government

A half-million Coloradans have already signed up for the state’s new coronavirus-tracking notification tool

More than 500,000 Coloradans have already signed up for the state’s new tool to notify people if they have possibly been exposed to the coronavirus. The tool, called Exposure Notifications, runs in the background on smartphones to exchange non-personally identifying information with other phones it comes near that also are running the app. If a […]

Posted inBusiness, COVID, News

A mission-minded loan source that doesn’t care if you’re a startup with no experience, revenues or credit

When Valerie and Cesar Beltran decided to open Beltran’s Meat Market & Grill in Northglenn four years ago, they thought their past experience of running their own meat market in New Mexico and then a Front Range tortilla factory was enough to make them creditworthy. But as opening day approached, the couple realized they needed […]

Posted inCOVID, News

Coronavirus exposure-notification service for smartphones won’t be rolled out in Colorado until October

A smartphone system informing Coloradans when they have been exposed to someone infected with the coronavirus will not be available in September as state officials initially said.  The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Gov. Jared Polis’ office now say the “Exposure Notifications Express” system being created in partnership with tech giants Apple […]

Posted inBusiness, COVID, News

$300 unemployment bonus runs into technical snags in Colorado after people overwhelm request system

A federal program expected to launch Thursday to provide some unemployed Coloradans an extra $300 a week in jobless benefits was flooded with so many requests that the state labor department was forced to disable the certification process late Wednesday. The hiccup should not prevent eligible users from getting the federal Lost Wages Assistance benefits, […]