Techmeme: Some on-demand companies hire employees, not contractors, to provide a higher quality service (Farhad Manjoo/New York Times)

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June 28, 2015, 12:50 AM

Top News

Karen Weise / Bloomberg Business:

How Uber used its lobbying force, one of the largest and most successful in the US, to start operating legally in Portland — This Is How Uber Takes Over a City … Charlie Hales, the mayor of Portland, Ore., was running a zoning hearing last December when he missed a call on his cell from David Plouffe …

Tweets: @jwjnational, @paulsingh and @nitashatiku

Craig Timberg / Washington Post:

A history of hacker group L0pht, its ignored 1998 warnings to Congress on cyber security, and how it hounded Microsoft in the 90s — Net of insecurity Part 3 — A disaster foretold — and ignored — LOpht's warnings about the Internet drew notice but little action

Tweets: @csoghoian

Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:

Reddit's stance on policing behavior and not ideas is irresponsible because an echo chamber of hateful ideas can incite barbaric behavior — Reddit Is An Incubator Of Hate — Reddit's decision to police “behavior, not ideas” isn't just foolish — it's reckless.

Tweets: @startupljackson. See also Mediagazer

Josh Horwitz / Quartz:

Evernote, LinkedIn, and Uber are succeeding in China by playing by the government's rules — A new wave of US internet companies is succeeding in China—by giving the government what it wants — Facebook found itself shut out from China in 2009. Twitter got blocked the same year.

More: Beyond Search. Tweets: @jonrussell, @greatfirechina and @gabrielsnyder

Eugene Kim / Business Insider:

Profile of Dropbox COO Dennis Woodside, who's charged with making Dropbox a mature company — Dropbox is a $10 billion startup with serious growing pains — and this guy's in charge of saving it — See Also — Other tech companies tried to poach SurveyMonkey employees after former CEO Dave Goldberg's death

Thanks:@mattrosoff

Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:

Some on-demand companies hire employees, not contractors, to provide a higher quality service — Start-Ups Finding the Best Employees Are Actually Employed — When Ron Johnson was pitching his idea for an e-commerce delivery company to venture capitalists last year …

David Michaels / Bloomberg Business:

SEC allows startups raising up to $50M to tweet about stock or debt offering to gauge interest among potential investors — SEC Approves Tweeting by Startups to Test Investor Interest — Trying to figure out how many investors might want to fund your small business? Go ahead and tweet about it.

Tweets: @rafat, @startupljackson and @peterpham

Gillian Wong / Wall Street Journal:

Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial launches online bank MYbank to challenge Tencent's WeBank in China — Alibaba Affiliate Launches Online Bank Despite Regulatory Hurdles — MYbank offers microloans for businesses and consumers but users can't open bank accounts yet

More: Alizila, Reuters, Financial Times, ZDNet, Asia Times, e27, TechCrunch and ValueWalk

Bloomberg Business:

Uber launches UberBOAT ferry service in Istanbul with rides starting at 50 liras, about $19 — Uber Crosses Continents With Istanbul Water-Taxi Service — Ships pass along the Bosphorus strait past the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge between the continents of Europe, top, and Asia in Istanbul.

More: PC Magazine and Ars Technica

Peter Elkind / Fortune:

Instead of hardening security defenses, Sony Pictures focused on offending North Koreans less, and was more afraid of security costs than risks — Sony Pictures: Inside the Hack of the Century, Part 2 — We will take “a merciless counter-measure.” — On June 17, leaked emails show …

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