Highlights for the morning: India-EU 'deal of the decade', Meta launches paid subscriptions

Meta is preparing to launch paid subscriptions on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp with exclusive features and advanced AI capabilities. Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit for illegally recording conversations through its voice assistant. About these and other topics - in our review of key events for the morning of January 27.

India and the EU have concluded negotiations that "lasted nearly two decades" and reached a free trade agreement that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Ma called "the mother of all deals," CNBC reports. The agreement brings India and EU countries together into one big trade market. Businesses on both sides will be able to sell goods and services to nearly 2 billion people, with fewer duties and restrictions than before. The details of the agreement are scheduled to be revealed at the India-EU summit in New Delhi later on January 27.

For India, the deal with the EU has become an important support amid high US duties and the search for alternative markets. The EU is already India's largest trading partner with a turnover of over €120 billion in 2024, but experts note that the agreement will not replace a potential trade pact with the U.S., where India's surplus is significantly higher.

South Korea's ruling Democratic Party said it will pass a special law related to a trade agreement with the U.S. by the end of February after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to raise duties on Korean exports from 15% to 25%, CNBC reported. The reason was the delay in approving the arrangements agreed upon by Washington and Seoul last July.

This is a bill that envisages the creation of a state investment corporation to manage Seoul's promised $350 billion in investments that it is to transfer to the United States. The South Korean authorities said they would inform the U.S. side about the progress of the bill and send a delegation to Washington for talks.

Meta will start testing new subscriptions that will give users access to exclusive features, additional tools and advanced AI capabilities, TechCrunch reports. Premium options will appear in Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, with the basic functionality of the services remaining free, while the set of paid features will differ in each application.

As part of the subscription model, Meta is also scaling the Manus AI agent it bought for about $2 billion and testing paid access to AI tools like Vibes video generation. On Instagram, subscriptions could give unlimited audience lists, viewing users who don't subscribe back, and anonymous viewing of Stories, among other things.

Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class action lawsuit in which the company was accused of illegally recording user conversations via Google Assistant and using that data, including for targeted advertising, Reuters reports. The company did not admit guilt, but agreed to a settlement.

The lawsuit concerned so-called "false positives", when the assistant allegedly turned on and recorded conversations without an activation command. This is not the first such case on the market: earlier Apple paid $95 million for similar claims against Siri, and in 2024 Google also paid $1.4 billion to the Texas authorities in cases of violation of data protection laws.

- Japan's broad Topix index was up 0.3%, with the Nikkei 225 adding 0.73% in Jan. 27 trading.

- Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was up 1.3%. Mainland China's CSI 300 index was up 0.25%.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index was up 2.59% and the Kosdaq was up 1.47%.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.92%.

- S&P 500 futures were up 0.35%, Nasdaq Composite futures were up 0.68% and Dow Jones Industrial Average exchange-traded contracts were little changed.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor