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December 17, 2020, 5:00 AM
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| Gilad Edelman / Wired: |
A look at allegations in Texas AG's antitrust suit, accusing Google of giving Facebook special privileges in exchange for not supporting a competing ad system — A new antitrust case against Google alleges that the two companies made a deal to reduce competition in online advertising.
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United States District Court, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, VentureBeat, The Next Web, The Economic Times, Reuters, Politico, CNBC, Texas Attorney General, Reuters, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, BBC, Vox, Voice of America, Firstpost Tech, and The Information
Tweets: @txag, @robinberjon, @parismarx, @linamkhan, and @moonalice
| Diane Bartz / Reuters: |
Source: a bipartisan group of 30+ state attorneys general will sue Google on Thursday, accusing Google of favoring its own products in search results — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google, already facing lawsuits by the U.S. Justice Department and attorneys general led by Texas …
More:
Washington Post, Politico, The Verge, and 9to5Google
Tweets: @ousfourita, @dseetharaman, @jason_kint, @daiwaka, @kylenabecker, @tayhatmaker, and @jowens510
| Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: |
Apple responds to Facebook's criticism of iOS 14 privacy measures, says Facebook won't be forced to change how it tracks users, but it must give users a choice — Apple has responded to Facebook's criticism over an upcoming iOS 14 privacy measure — specifically a change that will require users …
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Daring Fireball, The Verge, Engadget, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, iPhone Hacks, Pocketnow, Apple Terminal, and SiliconANGLE
Tweets: @arainert, @ldrogen, @s_oehler, @dhh, and @tomwarren
| Wall Street Journal: |
Facebook says it will assist Epic Games in its legal battle against Apple, including providing supporting documents — Social-networking company also dials up criticism of Apple's plan to allow iPhone users to restrict access to personal data — Facebook Inc. said it would assist …
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Facebook for Business, New York Times, and CNET
Tweets: @morfid_plays, @timsweeneyepic, @cheratomo, @can, @jstrauss, @shiraovide, and @karissabe
| Bloomberg: |
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The Guardian, Mashable, CNN, Washington Post, Facebook, Fast Company, Protocol, Ubergizmo, iMore, SlashGear, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, and TechRepublic
Tweets: @tomwarren, @waltmossberg, @mosseri, @mosseri, @davestangis, @johnpaczkowski, @mikeisaac, @fbnewsroom, @mikeisaac, @ralphhhenson, @moonalice, @rsgnl, @benedictevans, @larakiara, @jason_kint, @reckless, @caseynewton, @blackamazon, @emdubin, @jeremybmerrill, @kevinroose, @sandofsky, @dhh, @liviamcapital, @caseynewton, @davepell, @wolfiechristl, @pkafka, @eric_seufert, @mosseri, @tonyromm, @alexlindsay, @markoff, @rmac18, @allenholub, @moonalice, @brendonbigley, @fboversight, @iamtherog, @jeremybmerrill, @joshuajames, @eric_seufert, @jason_kint, @samfbiddle, @megancgraham, @donie, @bdsams, @amy_siskind, @matthewstoller, @kfury, @moonalice, @jasperboerstra, @alexhern, @chronic, @jeremiahjw, @eric_seufert, @glennf, @kentbye, @kantrowitz, @kantrowitz, @pkafka, @glennf, and @alfredwkng
| Washington Post: |
CISA's Einstein, which cost billions and monitors US agencies' networks for bad actors, missed the SolarWinds hack, which now counts the NIH among its victims — When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably sometime in the spring …
More:
Krebs on Security, Krebs on Security, Wired, The Verge, Politico, BBC, GeekWire, New York Times, The Register, The Guardian, SiliconANGLE, Forbes, and MakeUseOf
| Thomas P. Bossert / New York Times: |
Ex-Homeland Security Adviser: the magnitude of the Solarwinds breach is hard to overstate and the remediation effort alone will be staggering — The magnitude of this national security breach is hard to overstate. — Mr. Bossert was the homeland security adviser to President Trump …
Tweets: @tombossert, @dandrezner, @ewong, @alaneyre1, @normative, @kylieatwood, @dnvolz, @nicoleperlroth, @kaitlancollins, @dnvolz, @marcambinder, @dnvolz, @jonhurwitz, and @brett_mcgurk
| Jack Morse / Mashable: |
Twitter says it will stop prompting users to Quote Tweet, restoring the standard RT functionality, and says QT use increased but overall sharing dropped by 20% — Well, it was worth a shot. — Twitter announced Wednesday that it will cease prompting users to quote tweet in lieu of the standard retweet.
More:
The Verge, Reuters, Pocket-lint, TechRadar, Big Technology, and SlashGear
| Makena Kelly / The Verge: |
Twitter says it will start removing tweets that spread harmful COVID-19 vaccine misinformation starting next week and will label conspiracies starting in 2021 — It may apply labels early in 2021 — Twitter announced Wednesday that it will remove tweets making false or misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccinations.
More:
Twitter, help.twitter.com, Social Media Today, Chicago Tribune, and Neowin
Tweets: @twittersafety, @daveyalba, @oneunderscore__, @noupside, and @markdistef
| Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: |
Substack launches Substack Reader, an RSS reader for tracking newsletter subscriptions and other feeds, in beta — Substack Reader is now available in beta — If you're worried about all your newsletter subscriptions getting lost in your inbox, Substack may have a solution.
More:
Substack Blog and Gizmodo
| Bloomberg: |
A group of AI researchers at Google have asked for policy and leadership changes including the removal of VP Megan Kacholia from their reporting hierarchy — - Team says it must be able to contest Google ‘revenue agendas’ — Letter to CEO asks company to commit to academic integrity| Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic: |
A pessimistic look at Facebook and its enormous, uncontrollable impact on the US and world, giving Zuckerberg incredible power with little oversight — The Doomsday Machine was never supposed to exist. It was meant to be a thought experiment that went like this: Imagine a device built … | The Guardian: |
Invoices show Israeli surveillance firm Rayzone leased access to SS7 traffic from a Channel Islands mobile operator to spy on cell communications and locations — The Israeli private intelligence company Rayzone Group appears to have had access to the global telecommunications network via …
More:
The Bureau of Investigative …. Tweets: @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @2b_as, @zackwhittaker, @fabiochiusi, @jsrailton, @karlbode, @vijayshekhar, @tbij, @campuscodi, @jsrailton, @ronwyden, and @marietjeschaake
| FinSMEs: |
BigID, which helps monitor and protect enterprise customers' data, raises $70M Series D led by Salesforce Ventures and Tiger Global at a valuation of $1B+ — BigID, a NYC-based leader in data discovery and intelligence for privacy, protection and perspective, raised $70Mm in series D financing … | Nick Statt / The Verge: |
Google's Stadia arrives on iOS and iPadOS in beta for mobile web, letting users access their game library on Apple devices — Playing Cyberpunk 2077 on an iPad is pretty great — Google Stadia has finally made its way to iOS over a year after launch. The company's mobile web beta …
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TechCrunch, Laptop Mag, Engadget, BGR, TouchArcade, MacDailyNews, and 9to5Google
Tweets: @googlestadia, @martinsfp, @notwaldorf, and @tomwarren
| Joe Tidy / BBC: |
Dutch prosecutors find researcher Victor Gevers did successfully log into Donald Trump's Twitter account; the White House and Twitter denied the incident — Dutch prosecutors have found a hacker did successfully log in to Donald Trump's Twitter account by guessing his password - “MAGA2020!”
More:
Vox, International Business Times, Agence France-Presse, The Overspill, Forbes, and The Hill
Tweets: @suckercarlson, @timarvier9, @ai6yrham, @mollyjongfast, @troyhunt, @bbcworld, @danielschuman, @according2luke, and @zackwhittaker
| Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: |
French P2P payments startup Lydia raises $86M led by Accel, as an extension of its Series B, bringing total of its Series B round to $131M — French fintech startup Lydia has extended its Series B round. Accel is leading the extension with all major existing shareholders also participating.| Dawn Kawamoto / San Francisco Business Journal: |
Upstart, whose P2P lending software uses AI to make credit decisions and eliminate fraud, closes at $29.47 per share, up 47.4% on its first day of trading — Upstart soared 47.4% on its first day as a newly minted public company Wednesday, a marked contrast to the rocky IPO debut of Bay Area e-commerce company Wish.
More:
MarketWatch, PYMNTS.com, and CNBC
| Nikki Sun / Nikkei Asia: |
China's government is rethinking its tolerant attitude towards monopolies, fearing too much power, driven by the rise of huge tech conglomerates like Ant Group — Alibaba, Tencent and a host of internet giants face new scrutiny from the Party — HONG KONG — When China's business regulator …
Tweets: @nikkeiasia, @napolitanodean, and @hk_nikkisun
| Meagan Simpson / BetaKit: |
Calgary-based digital bank Neo Financials raises a total of $50M CAD, including a $25M CAD Series A led by Peter Thiel-backed Valar Ventures — Neo Financial, the newest Canadian challenger bank startup looking to shake up the financial sector, has announced $50 million CAD and launched …
More:
Globe and Mail, calgaryherald, and Neo Financial
| Manuel Vonau / Android Police: |
Netflix is rolling out a Video Off button at the top of the full-screen video player and an audio only mode in settings for its Android app — Netflix might not be playing nicely with Google TV for some reason, but the company is pouring tons of resources into its Android app.| Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: |
Researchers detail AIR-FI, a technique that can convert a RAM card into an impromptu wireless emitter to transmit sensitive data from air-gapped systems — AIR-FI technique can send stolen data at speeds of up to 100 b/s to Wi-Fi receivers at a distance of a few meters.
Tweets: @carolynvs, @cstross, @aronchick, and @ttuegel
| Vikas SN / The Economic Times: |
Google unveils an open source multilingual language model supporting 16 Indian languages to help researchers and students build tech in local languages — Google has unveiled a machine learning tool for Indian languages to help researchers, students, and startups keen on building local language technologies … Sponsor Posts
Google:
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Shopify:
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Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control — Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.Featured Podcasts
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Hard Fork:
Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media + Is the A.I. Water Issue Fake? + Hard Fork Wrapped
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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