Apple's announcement on Monday that an outside monitoring group, the Fair Labor Association, has begun inspecting its suppliers' factories in China rekindled a debate over how effective the group has been in eliminating labor abuses. (Today)

American and European antitrust regulators on Monday approved Google's acquisition of the cellphone maker Motorola Mobility without formal conditions, paving the way for the search giant to compete directly with its new archrival, Apple. (Today)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Technology used to be so simple. (Yesterday)

Facebook's pending initial public offering gives credence to the argument that personal data is the oil of the digital age. The company was built on a formula common to the technology industry: offer people a service, collect information about them as they use that service and use that information to sell advertising. (Yesterday)

BERLIN -- European lawmakers, who two years ago capped fees for mobile data roaming within the European Union at €50 a month, want to expand the protection to cover the whole world. (Yesterday)