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OpenAI knows that it needs to continue generating memes and virals. That’s why she’s willing to pay Disney a lot of money for her content.

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Disney and OpenAI have announced a three-year licensing agreement that will allow users to create short videos featuring more than 200 Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars characters through soraOpenAI’s AI video generation platform. The operation includes an investment of $1 billion by the Mickey Mouse company in the AI ​​startup. Change of sight. Disney has gone from sue AI platforms like Midjourney for unauthorized use of its characters to become OpenAI’s first major content licensing partner. The company also sent a cease and desist letter to Character.AI in September for the same reason. This change in strategy gives clues to Disney’s move, choosing to monetize and control the use of its intellectual property instead of trying to stop it completely. What users can do. Starting in early 2026, according to OpenAI, Sora users will be able to generate short videos for social networks with characters such as Mickey Mouse, Iron Man, Darth Vader, Elsa, Simba or Groot, as well as iconic costumes, accessories, vehicles and settings from these franchises. From ChatGPT, users will also be able to create static images of these same characters using text instructions. The agreement expressly excludes the faces and voices of real actors. The business model behind the agreement. OpenAI need viral content to maintain the attention of users, and in recent months it has made it clear to us that this route is its current main source of income to attract more users who want to go through the hoops of its subscription plans. Disney characters are precisely the type of content that fits this vision. That is why the company is willing to pay to license this intellectual property. Disney as a corporate client of OpenAI. Beyond the license, Disney will become a “major customer” of OpenAI, under the terms of the agreement. The company will deploy ChatGPT to its employees and use OpenAI APIs to build new tools, products and experiences, including functionality for Disney+. In fact, perhaps the most striking thing about the agreement is that a curated selection of videos generated by Sora It will be available to play from the streaming platform. Investment and purchase options. Disney will provide $1 billion in equity investment and will receive warrants to acquire additional stakes in OpenAI in the future. The transaction is still subject to negotiation of definitive agreements and approvals prior to closing. Commitments on responsible use. Both companies say in the joint statement that they will maintain “robust controls” to prevent the generation of illegal or harmful content, respect the rights of content creators and protect the use of people’s voice and image. OpenAI is further committed to implementing age-appropriate policies and other safety measures on the service. The vision of the CEOs. Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, assures that “the rapid advance of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry” and defends that collaboration will allow “extending the reach of our narrative in a thoughtful and responsible way.” For his part, Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, affirms that the agreement “shows how AI companies and creative leaders can work together responsibly to advance innovation.” What’s coming now? It remains to be seen if this licensing model extends to other studios and large content owners. Everything indicates that it certainly will not be the only large company to take advantage of this type of agreement. The litmus test will be when all the content in Sora is released and if it gains enough traction on networks for OpenAI to consider it a small victory in its quest for make ChatGPT a profitable tool for your business. In Xataka | Quietly, a country is becoming a technological power thanks to data centers: India

You can pay for dinners, but not receive family donations

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The use of digital payments has skyrocketed in Spain thanks to the ease of payment from mobile phones and the success of platforms like Bizum. For this reason, the Government has decided to adapt the regulations to today’s world. As of January 1, 2026, it is redefined how banking entities must inform to the Tax Agency about the movements of its clients. The historical limit of 3,000 euros that until now acted as a reference for notifying the Treasury is eliminated and the criteria is changed: the amounts no longer matter but the patterns. The key question is how this affects individuals. End to the limit of 3,000 euros. Until now, banking entities had the obligation to inform the Tax Agency of any movement that exceeds 3,000 euros, regardless of whether it was a company or an individual. With the new Royal Decree 253/2025 which comes into effect on January 1, 2026, that limit disappears. Starting in January, the reporting obligation goes from being based on the amount of the payment to the type of operation and the total volume of the year and the obligation to report is also added when these payments are made through mobile payment applications or payments associated with mobile phone numbers (Bizum). This opens the door to operations that previously did not generate any type of notice (payments of 50, 200 or 500 euros made by card, transfer or Bizum), can now become part of the periodic reports that financial entities send to the Treasury. Bizum and mobile payments: what changes? The elimination of this limit does not mean that the Treasury will review these movements one by one, but the automatic barrier that prevented small transfers from flying under the Treasury’s radar is eliminated. Payment systems between individuals, such as Bizum, which were traditionally presented as an “informal” and quick way to send money, are thus integrated into the official information circuit. Payment and electronic money entities must report to the Treasury the credits and charges of all these accounts, including those associated with external apps or virtual cards. That is, the Treasury will also know what income or payments are made through these platforms and their frequency. Paying for dinner is not paying a mortgage. For the individual user, this means that sending a Bizum to a dinner with friendsa gift or a shared expense continues to work as usual. What changes is that the information circulates more systematically between the entity and the Treasury. If the movements are sporadic and consistent with personal use, it will have no consequences. However, if these payments are continuous, high, periodic or present their own patterns of economic activity, they could reveal some undeclared commercial activity or hidden donations between family members. Donating is not a crime.. One of the most frequently asked questions It has to do with the possibility of making small donations to family members: helping a child with their studies, supporting a family member with an unexpected expense or making specific contributions. The new regulations does not limit these operations on the platforms, since money transfers of 200, 500, 1,000 or 2,500 euros can continue to be made without any impediment. The change is in the Treasury’s ability to detect them if they occur through Bizum, transfer or digital payment on a recurring basis. …crime is not declaring it. Although the operation remains legal, the inheritance and donation regulations apply. That means that any donation, even a small one, must be declared. In the majority of autonomous communities, the rates for these donations they are very rewarded between immediate family members, to the point that in many cases nothing is paid. But declaring them is mandatory. If the movements are repeated or if the recipient cannot justify the origin, the Treasury could detect them and request explanations or impose sanctions. They want to detect undeclared activity. The focus of the new regulations is not to check whether you pay for your friend’s movie tickets or every daily movement, but to identify economic activities that are hidden behind dispersed digital payments: undeclared rents, private classes, recurring sales of products or habitual income that could be considered commercial activities camouflaged as personal transfers. That is why, more than sending a certain amount of money to a friend or family member, what increases is the Treasury’s control over frequent and repetitive income, regardless of the amount. In Xataka | Bizum en la Renta 2024: what income and payments you have to declare and how to do it in the 2025 declaration Image | Ivan Linares (Xataka Mobile)

If you want bricklayers you have to pay them and give them vacations.

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Despite the growing demand for renovations and new homesthe construction sector suffers from a serious labor shortage. The current situation is not just a question of numbers, but a structural problem that is related to the aging of staff, the absence of generational replacement and difficult working conditions that fail to attract young people. The sector is experiencing a moment of “discovery”: if you want trained bricklayers, it is It is essential to improve their salaries and conditions, including vacation days and a work day that allows for reconciliation. That is the main drawback for an industrial fabric made up mainly of self-employed workers. A labor market under pressure. In Spain, the construction sector is going through one of its worst labor crises. According to the National Construction Confederation (CNC) it is estimated that currently some 700,000 workers are needed to cover the demand for works and renovations. Data from the BBVA Research Real Estate Observatory for June 2025 show that vacancies in the sector have multiplied by four since 2016, reflecting an upward trend that does not seem to stop. The employment figures collected in the BBVA report reveal that only 6.8% of those employed in Spain work in the construction sector, far from the 14% that was registered before the 2008 crisis. Aging without replacement. This situation is further aggravated by the difficulty in attracting new workers, especially due to the harsh legacy left by the 2008 crisis in which thousands of professionals left the sector or changed jobs. The BBVA report reveals that more than 55% of construction employees in Spain are over 45 years old and only 9% are under 30 years old, a clear indication of the lack of a generational change cash. Only the arrival of immigrants has allowed a slight rejuvenation between 2022 and 2024. Pascual, bricklayer and construction businessman, assured on Adrián G. Martín’s channel: “I have four projects underway and I need people who know how to manage them, but… I find few prepared people. I need young people who want to learn, but you can’t find them.” A demanding and… poorly paid job? The labor shortage is putting upward pressure on wages. According what was published by The Confidentialthe base salary for a construction worker is around 1,300 euros per month in 14 payments, which amounts to about 18,457 euros per year. according to the sectoral agreement valid until December 2026, but can be reached between 1,384 and 1,500 euros per month depending on the complements and the autonomous community. In regions such as the Valencian Community, the average salary amounts to 23,541 euros per year, while in other communities it exceeds 20,000 euros per year. The EPA data (Active Population Survey) by sectors indicate that, in recent years, salaries have been improving (forced by the increase in the SMI) in the lowest deciles, and due to the pressure of labor shortage in the case of those who have better training or first-class officers. Salary increase in construction Masons without school. Another key factor in the labor crisis is the lack of training for young people seeking to join this sector. The BBVA Research report indicates that Spain has a less qualified construction workforce than the European average, which negatively impacts productivity and limits the adoption of new technologies and efficient methods. The report confirms itAdjustment of employment supply and demand 2025‘ prepared by the Ministry of Labor, which indicates that there is a real and persistent imbalance in construction: there are positions that are difficult to fill, not so much because of lack of demand, but because the supply of qualified labor does not fit the profile demanded. That is, companies do not want to hire profiles to train them internally, so potential candidates to occupy that position in the future are rejected. Jobs without relief. The problem of talent shortage in construction does not only affect bricklayers. Traditional construction-related trades (such as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, painters, etc.) have shared the same construction practices. salary denigrationharsh working conditions and outsourcing of training. However, the attractiveness of employment remains low among young people because it is a “very hard job” and physically demanding, with long hours and little work-life balance. The construction employers have been very belligerent with both the working hours reduction measuresas time controlwhich does not contribute to making the sector attractive to young people. They are not getting rich. Given the shortage of personnel, it is natural to think that the available professionals are getting rich. However, this assumption, which would perhaps be fulfilled in a scenario of large companies where they bid for the best professionals, does not occur in an industrial fabric made up of 92.93% of self-employed people with SMEs without employees or micro-businesses with between 1 and 9 employees. As and how does it count electrician and TikTok influencer Ricardo Abellán (@dombydomotica), the problem of talent shortage is not so much due to staff training, but rather due to the inability of SMEs and self-employed workers to assume the salaries of their new employees. Before that financial inabilityprofessionals choose to generate increasingly longer waiting lists that would be weighing down the sector growth. In Xataka | Europe warns of labor shortage in the technology sector: the worst is yet to come Image | Unsplash (Emma Houghton)

an app to pay for parking

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Scams impersonating companies are the order of the day. Those that impersonate the Post Office or another courier company are the most common, but also the best known to the general public. Cybercriminals are still searching new ways to make us fall into their trap and now they have focused on a well-known parking management app: Telpark. what has happened. They tell it in The Newspaper. A new scam is circulating in which they use the image of the Telpark app. According to the Cybersecurity Agency of Cataloniathe scam is spreading email and pretends that our Telpark account is temporarily suspended due to a problem with a non-payment. Through a link to a website that imitates Telpark’s, it takes us to a payment gateway that is actually the scammers’ way of stealing our banking information. Once they have our data, they could charge us more on the card or sell it on the black market. Why is it important. We have been suffering from scams of this style for years and we are more aware, but scammers use new methods to continue adding victims. According to CIS data in 2024almost half of the Spanish population has been a victim of a scam or an attempt and at least 80% have received suspicious messages or emails requesting personal or financial information. According to the Feedzai and GASA reportin 2023 the sum of money stolen in Spain through scams amounted to 7,750 million euros. It may seem difficult for us to fall for a scam like this, but the reality is that it works for them. The micropayment trick. It is one of the most used in this type of scams. When the amount they ask for is small, they make us less suspicious and increase the chances that we will end up making the payment. . It is the case of the famous scam of the package detained at customs in which they ask us for an amount to be able to receive the product. There are other cases where they ask us for a higher amount, such as the scam of the alleged DGT fine. How to avoid falling for a scam. In the case of scams like Telpark, it is advisable to carefully check the email address from which we receive the message, that the message is well written and there are no inconsistencies, but above all never click on any link and much less give our personal or banking information. The most effective scams are the ones that are most personalized to the victim, which is why the son in trouble It has caused havoc in our country. With the arrival of AI tools that can clone voice These types of scams become much more dangerous and it is necessary to adopt new methods, such as have a “family password” that we can use to verify that we are really talking to our family member. Image | Telpark In Xataka | We should not trust any QR code we see out there. The Qrishing scam is growing at a dangerous rate

Justice condemns Meta to pay 479 million euros to Spanish media for unfair competition

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Meta has been condemned by the Commercial Court No. 15 of Madrid to pay 479 million euros to 87 media and news agencies integrated into the Information Media Association. According to the ruling, picked up by AMIthe company is considered to have gained an unfair competitive advantage by illicitly using personal data on Facebook and Instagram for “behavioral advertising.” The resolution, dated November 19, 2025, is not final and can be appealed. We have requested comments from Meta and are awaiting a response. The origin of the case dates back to May 2018, when The General Data Protection Regulation came into force and Meta modified the legal basis for processing the personal data of its users, moving from consent to the supposed need for a contract. On December 1, 2023, the News Media Association filed the lawsuit in court. The preliminary hearing was held on November 27, 2024 and the oral hearing took place on October 1 and 2, 2025, after an economic claim of between 551 million euros. GDPR violation, not advertising violation. The resolution focuses on the way in which personal data was obtained and processed, rather than on the advertising activity itself. According to the ruling, the processing lacked a valid legal basis under the GDPR, because the contract formula does not replace informed consent. This violation is considered sufficient reason to activate article 15.1 of the Unfair Competition Law, which penalizes obtaining advantages in the market through regulatory non-compliance. The 5,281 million under analysis. During the procedure, the court notes, Meta Ireland did not provide its operating accounts in Spain, despite having been requested. Given this absence, the judge applied the rules of the burden of proof and validated the data presented by the plaintiff. Based on these elements, it estimated that, between May 25, 2018 and August 1, 2023, Meta would have earned more than 5,281 million euros with its advertising business in Spain. How compensation is calculated. To set the amount of compensation, the court used the Study on the conditions of competition in the online advertising sector in Spain prepared by the CNMC. Based on the market shares of the affected period, it was established that the income obtained by Meta through a practice contrary to the RGPD should be redistributed among competitors. The ruling considers it proven, with “reasonable plausibility,” that the digital press suffered lost profits. The ruling does not end the matter. The sentence itself admits of appeal and it will be the Provincial Court that will evaluate the arguments of both parties if the procedure continues. Until then, the case serves to place at the center the question of how privacy, commercial exploitation of data and competition should be related in the digital environment. The company has not yet expressed its position. We have requested your evaluation and are waiting to receive official comments. Images | Mark Zuckerberg | Dima Solomin In Xataka | Circular AI funding was not over: NVIDIA, Microsoft and Anthropic have signed a new billion-dollar deal

OpenAI is going to have to pay a fortune in credit obligations in 2026. Today the accounts do not work out

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In recent months, OpenAI has signed agreements worth more than $1.4 trillion in infrastructure—data centers—that will be built in the next 8-10 years. The problem is that to do this they will have to face gigantic credit obligations that will require billions of dollars in 2026, and it is not at all clear how they will be able to face those payments. bad business. Your current income structure certainly does not support such debt. Sam Altman indicated in X They expect to end the year with more than $20 billion in annualized revenue. Even so, they will continue to be in (very) red numbers, although they also promise that by 2030 they will enter “hundreds of billions of dollars“The accounts do not come out, and that makes it virtually impossible to meet all credit commitments without resorting to extraordinary forms of financing, refinancing or… Rescue. Last week there was already talk about how both NVIDIA and OpenAI had dropped the possibility that papa state had to rescue them in case of a debacle. Sam Altman himself clarified shortly after that “we don’t have or want government guarantees (…) and taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions.” He does not want a rescue, but he does talk about agreements with the government. Although Altman clarified that he was not seeking government bailouts, he did make it clear that there is a debate about a strategy to face these loans: “The only area in which we have discussed loan guarantees is in the framework of supporting the construction of semiconductor factories in the United States (…) Of course, this is different from governments guaranteeing the construction of data centers for private purposes.” It seems impossible for them to get out of this. As analyst Ed Zitron explains in your newsletterOpenAI needs $400 billion over the next 12 months to meet those credit obligations. Not only that: for him OpenAI’s plans to build chips with Broadcom and fill a 1 GW data center or create similar data centers with AMD chips Instinct or with the Vera Rubin from NVIDIA “There is not enough time to build these data centers. And if there was enough time, there would not be enough money. And if there was enough money, there would not be enough (electrical) transformers, electrical grade steel or specialized talent to supply the electricity for these data centers.” That’s all a gigantic house of cards. Possible strategies. OpenAI increasingly depends on debt issues and strategic investors, but also on those circular financing agreements it has reached with several companies. SoftBank, which already invested in OpenAI, could expand its bet, especially now that it has just sold completely all its participation in NVIDIA. Although the sale has obtained almost $6 billion, the figure is still insufficient even if it is invested in OpenAI. And of course OpenAI could achieve explosive revenue growth, but it is far from clear that it will achieve such growth in the short term. The other solution: slow down. OpenAI’s excessive ambition makes everything surrounding its agreements and proposals absolutely enormous, and that also affects its credit obligations. Adopting a slightly less risky strategy and setting more feasible deadlines could reduce the financial stress to which the company is subject… but it would also raise doubts about the growth promises that Altman and his people have made for years. Going public? Another option for OpenAI is to go public now that it has managed to complete the restructuring and has become in a for-profit organization under the umbrella, of course, of the OpenAI Foundation. In recent days there was talk about how this option would allow the company get a billion dollar valuationbut the analysts they doubt that something like this is going to happen in the short term… if it happens at all. And the bubble keeps growing. Analysts like Scott Galloway they explained recently that the valuations of companies like NVIDIA, Oracle or AMD are conditional on those “handshake” agreements with other companies like OpenAI. For him, these agreements have no substance: there is much ado about nothing. If the market ends up losing confidence, the consequences could be dire and the hypothetical bubble could burst. Source: Apollo Academy All eggs in one basket. Stock market concentration does not help. Torsten Sloj, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, has been talking for some time about the dangerous concentration of the S&P 500 index in 2025. A few days ago published a graph in which it showed the returns of various assets in the last five years, and there is a clear conclusion: while “the Magnificent Seven” have grown exceptionally, the rest have barely done so. Image | Steve Juvetson In Xataka | There is a race in which Anthropic is winning over OpenAI: that of being profitable

NVIDIA and OpenAI know that the AI ​​bubble can burst in their faces. His solution: let dad pay for the state

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Too big to fail or, in English, “too big to fail.” It is a theory of economics and finance which argues that certain corporations, especially banks, are so large and so interconnected that their failure would have catastrophic consequences for the global economy and therefore must be rescued by governments. The speech gained traction in the 2008 financial crisis and is beginning to sound again from the mouths of NVIDIA and OpenAI, no less. Government support. At an event of WSJSarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI, stated that the company will not go public in the short term (she says until at least 2027) and that its priority is growth and investment in R&D, above profitability. The most striking part of his speech was when he said that they hope that the government will support the financing of future agreements related to data centers. That OpenAI is burning astronomical amounts of money to lead the AI ​​race is something we have been discussing for a long timebut it is the first time that they directly appeal to the state to guarantee it. Shortly after, Friar collected cable in a post on LinkedIn: “OpenAI does not seek government support for our infrastructure commitments. I used the word ‘support’ and that confused the message,” but the seed was already planted. Depreciation. OpenAI is closing deals to secure computing capacity. We have seen it with his alliance with NVIDIAwith amdwith Broadcom and more recently with amazon. The complexity of the situation is that the depreciation rates of AI chips remain uncertain. As it says Washington Post’s Gerrit de Vynck in XOpenAI is going to need the best chips to be at the forefront of the AI ​​market, but financing this demand is not the same if the life cycle of the chips is seven years, as if it is only two years. The money is flowing, the question is for how long. In this uncertain scenario, government support would act as a safety net so that banks and private equity firms would feel more comfortable and continue releasing billions for OpenAI. China will win. NVIDIA is also appealing for government involvement in subtle ways. In a Financial Times event in London, Its CEO Jenshen Huang has warned that “China is going to win the AI ​​race.” Their arguments are that China has more flexible regulation and government subsidies for the energy your data centers needthat It is not little. This energy advantage allows China to compete even if they cannot buy NVIDIA’s most powerful chips. Huang doesn’t say it directly, but it is a clear wake-up call: either you subsidize the energy our data centers need or China will win. The fear. The question has been hanging over the air for a long time: Are we witnessing a new bubble? The investor Michael Burry thinks soand he is not just any investor, he was the one who made gold when the real estate bubble burst in 2008 (the movie ‘The Big Short’ is based on his story). The thing is, Burry just bet short against NVIDIA, which recently It was valued at 5 billion dollars. Fear of the bubble continues to grow, according to a Coatue report and the number of fund managers who believe we are in a bubble increased to 54% in October, up from 37% in July this year. 48% of the S&P 500 index corresponds to AI-related stocks. Fountain: Bianco Research Numbers. The fear is not at all unfounded and all you have to do is take a look at the numbers. Account Tomás Pueyo in Uncharted Territories that the economy should be in recession, but the numbers show the opposite and AI is behind this growth. The S&P 500 index is through the roof and 48% of this growth corresponds to AI-related stocks. The share price is far above what it was in the dotcom bustall with ridiculous benefits. And that’s not all, the economic growth of the United States in 2025 is due almost entirely to the construction of data centers for AI. According to the Economist Jason Furmanwithout taking data centers into account, the GDP of the United States would have grown only 0.1% in 2025. The creator of the newsletter Today in Tabs He gave a very graphic example: “Our economy could be reduced to three AI data centers in trench coats.” Tightrope. Returning to OpenAI, its financial director assured the Financial Times that it could be profitable simply by stopping investing too aggressively since it has a “very healthy” margin structure. The thing is, they can’t do it. OpenAI needs to achieve AGI, its great promise and the only thing that could justify this insane investment. If it fails, will cause a shock wave that can impact NVIDIA, AMD, Oracle… and end up dragging down the global economy. The competition tightens, Anthropic is eating the business market’s toast and Google is not only winning every time more users with Geminireached record revenue in the last quarterwhile OpenAI lost $11.5 billion in the same period. It doesn’t look good. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | NVIDIA will invest 100 billion in OpenAI so that OpenAI buys chips from NVIDIA. And it’s a disturbing sign

If the question is whether you have to pay garbage tax for a parking space in Madrid, the answer is: good luck with the Cadastre

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April 8, 2022. The Government publishes in the BOE Law 7/2022, on waste and contaminated soils for a circular economy. Behind this name hides a small bomb that has been exploding, little by little, in each municipality. In Madrid, that detonation has come this year. Beyond the calculation, there are thousands of car parks that are now wondering: do I have to pay the new garbage fee? Where do we come from? My colleague Carlos Prego explained it a few days ago in Xataka. Madrid has recalculated its garbage rate, making reference to the famous Law mentioned above with a calculation that the OCU has come to define as “original and unfair”. The point is that controversy has arisen because Madrid City Council said “eliminate” this rate in 2015, alleging that they removed the tax burden from the citizen. The 2022 Law obliges municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants to begin collecting it, following European guidelines. To calculate that rate, The City Council has taken into account the cadastral value of the apartments or the tonnage of garbage that is collected in each neighborhood. That is, those who live in a neighborhood where more garbage is generated will pay more… and that directly affects neighborhoods with great tourist activity (hotels, tourist apartments…), commercial or very densely populated. a truce. The criticism has been so virulent on the part of the oppositionof the neighbors and of the associations of consumers who the City Council has partially rectified. They assure that now it will be taken into account the number of registered in each household looking ahead to next year. But what happens where no one lives? Yes, where, for example, there is a parked car because we are talking about a garage. And the garbage rate also affects the owners of a parking space… At least, apart from them. and a battle. Because although the neighbors seem to have received a truce with the new calculation in the garbage rate, which, yes, the City Council continues to defend that it will have little impact on obvious changes for neighborsthe new open front is what happens to the parking lots. And the door had been opened for a neighbor to have to pay a garbage fee for his home and another garbage fee for his parking lot. Despite the fact that, obviously, the garbage generated by a parking space is minimal or non-existent. Little more than general cleaning if we talk about a community parking lot. However, the rate taxes the provision of the service of collection, transportation and treatment of urban waste, in the words of the College of Administrators. That is, the same person (house and garage) could be charged for a single garbage collection. Who pays then? Those who will pay. Those owners of parking spaces whose parking lot is registered in the Cadastre as a “parking-industrial-use warehouse”, in the words of a circular sent by the Madrid College of Administrators to the Property Administrators of the Capital. What does this mean? They clarify it from the Cadastre which, upon consultation with one of these administrators, have confirmed that they are those independent garages that cannot be accessed from a home or from the common areas of a building. That is, those in which garbage is collected individually. Those who will not pay. Those owners of a parking space whose parking is registered in the Cadastre as “residential use”. Or, in a simplified way by this last entity, which are accessed from a home or from common areas with another building. In that case, they may be communities of different owners (garage and building) but if access is from the same common areas, the former will not pay the garbage fee. What does the City Council say? That they adhere to the type of land use specified in the Cadastre and, therefore, that it is the latter that specifies who should or should not pay the garbage rate. The only solution given in this case by the College of Property Administrators of Madrid is for the community to present a declaration of cadastral alteration to specify that the land use is residential and does not correspond to industrial use. The other alternative is to present a written due to discrepancies with the description of cadastral use. Photo | Kertis Stick and Madrid City Council In Xataka | The best horror movie of this winter has been released. And the protagonists are the owners of a home in Spain

They used dark patterns to make users pay more

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At the end of last year Microsoft made a risky move: integrate Copilot within Microsoft 365 and raise the price of the subscription without the option to deactivate it. What we saw at the time as a desperate attempt to attract more users for Copilot has ended up in court. Australia has sued them for allegedly deceiving 2.7 million users. what has happened. They count in Reuters that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has sued Microsoft. It maintains that the company misled its users into believing that they had to accept the price increase for Microsoft 365 with Copilot. Microsoft presented the change as something mandatory: either you accept the price increase or you unsubscribe. However, there was a third option that only appeared when you tried to unsubscribe and allowed you to maintain the original plan without Copilot. Imposition. It happened in 2024 in Australia and other Southeast Asian countries. Microsoft 365 subscribers suddenly found that Microsoft had integrated Copilot. Everything was fine except that it wasn’t free. The personal plan had an increase of 45%, while the family plan increased 29%. The problem is that Microsoft did not inform that it was possible to stay with the classic plan (without Copilot). This option only appeared if you tried to unsubscribe, so many users accepted it without knowing that this option existed. Consequences. The Australian commission says that Microsoft violated the consumer protection law and demands “penalties, consumer compensation, injunctions and costs.” The maximum fine you could face is 50 million Australian dollars, which would be triple the profit obtained. If profits cannot be determined, it would be 30% of the turnover during the infringement period. Dark patterns. They are manipulation techniques that websites and apps use so that users end up making decisions that benefit the company behind them. a couple of years ago In Spain, a marketing company was fined for using dark patterns to give up more personal data. We also find it in websites like Ryanair or Booking that bombard us to take out insurance or book that hotel because availability is running out. AI doesn’t pay for itself. Microsoft’s move highlights the problem of the AI ​​industry: the investment is hugebut the return is very small. Subscriptions are a way to make your investment profitable and now are the norm in AI tools, some even cost 200 dollars or more. Microsoft is having a difficult time standing out in an increasingly competitive environment, but its attempt to gain users for Copilot without being transparent has ended up backfiring. Images | Microsoft, Wikipedia In Xataka | AI always wanted us to pay to access its advanced versions. His plan now is for us to pay… For using it a lot

fry them with taxes so they pay for maintenance

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we have been counting over the last year: Japan has broken all its visitor arrival records while visibly suffering from the saturation effects tour. The nation’s response has begun in Kyoto in an emblematic way: if they cannot prevent the hordes, the government has thought that they will at least help the social, physical and management costs that their massive presence is generating. A boom that doesn’t fit. Foreign arrivals exceed 30 million in the first nine months of 2025, with a monthly record each month of the year and 3.26 million tourists in September, driving sustained pressure on fragile cities like Kyoto and iconic enclaves like mount fujiwhere “human density” produces mountain traffic jams, waste and safety risks. The demand overwhelms infrastructure and forces us to postpone usual activities (from schools that avoid tripseven the restriction of streets in neighborhoods like Gion) because tourist use is displacing basic civic uses and altering the balance between residents and visitors. The highest tax. The solution? The government has authorized Kyoto to charge from March 2026 to 10,000 yen per person per night in luxury hotels (well above the previous cap of 1,000 yen) within a tiered system that preserves low rates for budget travelers and shifts the burden to higher-income segments. The measure will double municipal income from accommodation from 5.2 to 12.6 billion yen and it is expressly presented as the obligation for tourists to “bear part of the cost of the countermeasures” instead of financing the adjustment only with local taxes. For the luxury traveler, the extra cost is marginal compared to the price of the trip, but for the city it constitutes a stable flow that turns tourist pressure into resource to govern it. From deterrence to sustainability engineering. The funds are intended for reinforce breaking points of the urban system: expanding fleets and transportation corridors to redistribute flows, fund multilingual services, etiquette and behavior control campaigns, and nurture a broader effort to preserve the cultural landscape that makes Kyoto attractive. The city, in fact, already applies disciplinary measures (street fines private Gion, selective closures, explicit signs that it is not “a theme park”) but needs to finance the long-term resilience of that coexistence. The logic is not so much to punish demand but to convert it into an investment in what should not be broken. The Asian laboratory. In reality, what is happening in Kyoto is not a local oddity but a preview of what the communities already face (or will face). global tourism capitals when the growth stop creating well-being net and begins to destroy it: congestion that degrades urban life, social resentment, residential displacementdeterioration of in situ assets and fiscal governance overwhelmed by a phenomenon whose elasticity of demand is much greater than its elasticity of burden. Japan, when encoding a explicit fiscal response (not to expel tourists but to force financial co-responsibility) is setting a regulatory precedent for other cities trapped in the same paradox: tourism cannot continue to be financed by those who suffer from it, it must be financed by those who cause it, or it will end up eroding the asset that justifies its own existence. The paradox of success. In short, the tourism boom persists (21.5 million visitors in the first half of 2025 and 56 million visitors to Kyoto in 2024) with signs that demand will not subside on its own. Hence, the tax does not seek to discourage but rather correct imbalances. A shift that recognizes a structural point: in mature destinations, tourism stops being a kind of “net gift” and becomes an activity that must pay for the maintenance of the urban ecosystem it consumes so as not to destroy it. Image | Pexels In Xataka | Japan has found the three most serious problems with the massive arrival of tourists. And none of it has to do with tourists. In Xataka | In Japan, tourism has become a problem. So they had an idea: give flights to foreigners

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