Techmeme
February 11, 2021, 1:50 PM

Top News

Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
Starting with iOS 14.5, Apple will proxy the Safe Browsing service in Safari through its own servers instead of Google's to protect user data  —  Starting with iOS and iPadOS 14.5, Apple will proxy Google's “Safe Browsing” service used in Safari through its own servers instead of relying …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft drops the price of foldable Surface Duo by $400 to $999 and says it will arrive in the UK, France, Germany, and Canada on Feb. 18, expanding beyond US  —  The first international release for Microsoft's dual-screen device  —  Microsoft is dropping the price of its foldable Surface Duo device …
Financial Times:
Sources: Microsoft made an offer to acquire Pinterest in recent months; source says the talks are not active right now  —  Microsoft approached Pinterest in recent months about a potential deal to acquire the $51bn social media company popular with hobbyists posting home decor …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Microsoft president says US and other countries should consider adopting rules like Australia's proposed laws forcing tech companies to pay for news content  —  Microsoft President Brad Smith told Axios in an interview that the U.S. and other countries should consider adopting media rules …
Sky Sports:
Daniel Goldblatt / The Wrap:
Facebook says Instagram has removed Robert F Kennedy Jr's account for making false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines  —  Move comes as the company is expanding efforts to crack down on conspiracy theory content  —  Instagram removed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s account on Wednesday …
Will Oremus / OneZero :
Clubhouse employs an unusually aggressive user onboarding process, pressuring users to upload contacts before ranking those contacts based on total connections  —  The app pressures you to upload your phone's contacts — and makes them visible in surprising ways
Jeremy B. Merrill / The Markup:
Google says it will update its ad policies after an investigation found advertisers could exclude people who identify as “unknown gender” from job ads and more  —  Dozens of advertisers instructed the company to not show their ads to people of “unknown” gender …
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero :
CBP scanned 23M+ people with facial recognition tech at airports, seaports, and pedestrian crossings in 2020, and reveals it caught zero imposters at airports  —  U.S. Customs and Border Protection scanned more than 23 million people in public places with facial recognition technology in 2020
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Labelbox, which develops data annotation and labeling software, raises $40M Series C led by B Capital Group, bringing its total raised to $79M  —  Labelbox, a startup developing a data annotation and labeling platform, today announced that it's raised $40 million, bringing its total raised to $79 million.
Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer:
A researcher was able to breach 35+ companies, including Microsoft and Apple, using a software supply chain attack that leveraged an open source ecosystem flaw  —  A researcher managed to breach over 35 major companies' internal systems, including Microsoft, Apple, PayPal, Shopify, Netflix …
Jeanne Whalen / Washington Post:
Biden administration asks a federal appeals court to halt Trump's attempted WeChat ban pending a review, following a similar request involving TikTok  —  The move comes as conservatives raise questions about the new administration's policies toward China  —  The Biden administration Thursday asked …
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Interview with Rob Monster, CEO of Epik, on serving sites like Gab, why his company severed ties with 8chan and The Daily Stormer, Parler shutdown, and more  —  Toggle more options  —  When websites flooded with hate speech or harmful disinformation become too radioactive for the Internet …
Tweets: @bobbyallyn, @wexler, @kuow, @fark, and @npr

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