Techmeme
December 17, 2020, 1:45 PM

Top News

New York Times:
A bipartisan group of 38 AGs sues Google for alleged antitrust violations in search, its third antitrust suit, including exclusionary contracts with Apple  —  More than 30 states said that the company downplayed websites that let users search for information in specialized areas.
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.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Facebook hits back at Apple with a second full-page newspaper ad, saying upcoming iOS 14 changes will “change the internet as we know it - for the worse”  —  Facebook isn't done criticizing Apple just yet  —  Facebook is stepping up its campaign against Apple's privacy changes with a second full-page newspaper ad today.
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 …
Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Facebook rolls back a post-election change that boosted news from authoritative outlets, even as some staff asked for the “nicer news feed” to be made permanent  —  Facebook confirmed that it has in the past few days rolled back a change that lifted news from authoritative outlets …
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.
Thomas P. Bossert / New York Times:
Ex-Homeland Security Adviser to Trump says 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 …
Washington Post:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Github says it is doing away with all non-essential cookies and will no longer feature “irritating” cookie banners on GitHub.com and its subdomains  —  Microsoft -owned GitHub today announced that it is doing away with all non-essential cookies on its platform.
Maggie Fitzgerald / CNBC:
Robinhood agrees to pay $65M to settle SEC charges that the company deceived customers between 2015 and late 2018 about its source of revenue  —  This is a developing story.  Check back for updates.  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged Robinhood with the deceiving customers …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Avast found 28 malicious Chrome and Edge extensions with 3M+ downloads, many posing as third-party add-ons for Instagram and Facebook; 25 still remain in stores  —  Extensions could redirect users to ads, phishing sites, collect user data, or download malware on infected systems.
CNBC:
The European Commission approves Google's $2.1B acquisition of Fitbit, on condition of compliance with a set of commitments related to privacy and user consent  —  - The Commission on Thursday set out a number of commitments that Google must follow over the next 10 years.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Walmart partners with TikTok to test live-streamed video shopping, during which users will be able to shop Walmart fashion without leaving the app  —  Walmart and TikTok announced this morning they will be partnering on the first pilot test of a new shoppable product experience on TikTok's social video app.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Spotify is now available on the Epic Games Store, signaling Epic's ambitions to make its game-focused store into a general app store  —  Epic is in prolonged battles with Apple and Google over their app store business models  —  Spotify is now available on the Epic Games Store …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Vice food vertical Munchies is launching a channel on OnlyFans, the first verified media publisher to do so, to post exclusive weekly videos for $4.99/month  —  Vice's food vertical, Munchies, is launching a verified channel on the breakout creator platform OnlyFans, a subscription site …
Raymond Zhong / New York Times:
Alibaba's cloud business site detailed how clients could use its software to detect the faces of Uighurs and other ethnic minorities within images and videos  —  The website for the tech titan's cloud business described facial recognition software that could detect members …
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

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