Techmeme
January 17, 2019, 3:50 PM

Top News

Facebook:
Facebook takes down 471 Facebook pages and accounts, as well as 41 Instagram accounts, for coordinated inauthentic behavior originating in Russia  —  Today we removed multiple Pages, groups and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.
Tim Cook / TIME:
Paul Lamkin / Wareable:
Google to buy Fossil's smartwatch IP, which Fossil has developed following its Misfit acquisition in 2015, for $40M  —  New smartwatch innovation is promised from the big deal  —  The Fossil Group and Google have exclusively revealed to Wareable that Google will pay Fossil $40 million …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Facebook says it will ask its employees to take down their reviews of Portal devices on Amazon after three employees were caught leaving 5-star reviews  —  Whoops  —  Facebook's Portal smart displays have had an uphill battle, trying to convince people to willingly give …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Mastercard says its updated policy to end automatic billing after free trials is only for physical products not digital services  —  A misleading blog post is currently being updated  —  Ever sign up for a free trial, only to get slapped with a monthly fee when you forget to cancel in time?
More: Global Hub and Engadget
Brian Barrett / Wired:
“Collection #1” database, which claims to contain records of ~773M unique email addresses and 21M passwords, some of them hashed, shows up on the web  —  THERE ARE BREACHES, and there are megabreaches, and there's Equifax.  But a newly revealed trove of leaked data tops …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
In an internal post, Sophie Alpert, a Facebook manager who oversaw React, says she quit after being harassed for criticizing Facebook's lack of diversity  —  - A Facebook engineering manager who ran an open-source project left earlier this month after being harassed by her colleagues.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Houseparty says the popular mobile game Heads Up will now be available inside its app with “packs” of words costing $0.99 or more  —  Building an ad-free social network through shared experiences  —  Houseparty, the group video chat that has carved out a niche among a segment …
More: Mashable
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Sources: Snap CFO Tim Stone resigned after a dispute with management over pay, going around CEO Evan Spiegel to ask Snap's board for a significant raise  —  - Stone went around Spiegel to seek pay bump, people say  — Executive also sought promotion to Khan's former strategy job
The Seattle Times:
Microsoft pledges $500M to tackle housing crisis in Seattle: $475M for loans to housing developers over three years and $25M for resident services  —  The pledge is the largest in the company's 44-year history, and comes as Microsoft and other tech giants that have driven …

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Earlier Picks

Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Yogita Khatri / CoinDesk:
Nick Summers / Engadget:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Rachel Yang / Variety: