Techmeme: ironSource, which makes user acquisition tech for app devs, will go public through a merger with Thoma Bravo's SPAC that values the combined business at $11.1B (Bloomberg)

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March 21, 2021, 9:35 PM

Top News

Ronn Blitzer / Fox News:

Trump adviser Jason Miller says Trump is having meetings with “numerous companies” to return to social media with his own platform in two to three months — Jason Miller tells Fox News' ‘#MediaBuzz’ the platform will ‘completely redefine the game’

Bloomberg:

Texas jury finds Apple infringed a DRM patent held by Personalized Media, and orders Apple to pay $308.5M to the company — Apple must pay $308.5 million to closely held Personalized Media Communications after a federal jury in Marshall, Texas, decided on Friday that the tech giant infringed …

More: ZDNet, Gizmodo, Engadget, Apple Terminal, Reuters, iTnews, MSPoweruser, iPhone Hacks, The Verge, FOSS Patents, 9to5Mac, iMore, MacRumors, and AppleInsider. Tweets: @brianfagioli

Stephen Warwick / iMore:

Brazilian state of São Paulo fines Apple $2M for selling iPhones without a charger, allegedly misleading customers about the water resistance of iPhones, more — “Apple needs to understand that in Brazil there are solid consumer protection laws and institutions.

More: Engadget, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Mashable, Sputnik News, The Verge, and Gizmodo

Tweets: @gartenberg, @danilpolshin, and @winterskiis

Juli Clover / MacRumors:

Court filing: Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, Eddy Cue, and ex-iOS software chief Scott Forstall are among witnesses to testify in Epic vs Apple trial — Apple today submitted its witness list for its upcoming bench trial with Epic Games, and several Apple executives will be testifying …

More: Bloomberg, Insider, The Verge, Engadget, TechCrunch, FOSS Patents, FOSS Patents, iMore, Gizchina, CNET, Reuters, iPhone in Canada Blog, HotHardware.com News, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, and Scribd

Tweets: @rsgnl, @wsig, @rsgnl, @rsgnl, @neilcybart, @timsweeneyepic, @timsweeneyepic, @realjoseph123, @fosspatents, @dragonmaniayt, @cfellowearthlin, @keleftheriou, @dylanmcd8, @iconredesign, and @markgurman

Trefor Moss / Wall Street Journal:

How Pinduoduo leads China's adoption of social e-commerce by putting social media first, and gamifying the shopping experience so people win deals and discounts — Five-year-old company is first challenger to loosen Alibaba and JD.com's stranglehold over online consumption in the country

Tweets: @juokaz, @jchengwsj, @wsj, and @mdudas

Gilad Edelman / Wired:

Google's plan to remove third-party cookies from Chrome does little to change the underlying dynamics of the surveillance-based behavioral advertising industry — The demise of surveillance capitalism has been greatly exaggerated. — GOOGLE GOT SOME good press a few weeks ago when it announced …

More: Forbes. Tweets: @tariqkrim, @chrismessina, @dsilverman, @emergtechethics, @julie17usc, @jason_kint, @wired, @judyshapiro, @judyshapiro, @brave, and @oliverdarcy

See also Mediagazer

Hürriyet Daily News:

Twitter says it will set up a legal entity in Turkey to comply with the country's social media law that took effect in October 2020 — Twitter accepted a requirement to appoint a local representative in Turkey as part of a new social media law that took effect in October 2020, according to a top Turkish official.

More: Twitter, The Verge, Engadget, Associated Press, TRT World, Daily Sabah, and The Hill

Tweets: @ahamitbilici, @mkarolian, @kaderariz, @esesci, @davidakaye, @stinson, and @ezralevant

Benedict Evans:

Software has eaten the world, fading into the background like electricity or cars before, and is now secondary to conventional industry differentiation concerns — Ten years ago Marc Andreessen wrote an article in the WSJ called ‘Software is eating the world’, arguing that there was a fundamental shift …

Tweets: @chanezon, @josephflaherty, @eric_seufert, @eric_seufert, @craigmod, @benedictevans, @hkanji, @helgeklein, and @dwellington

Yumiko Sato / Slate:

Misinformation and historical revisionism are widespread on some non-English editions of Wikipedia, such as Japanese, which is the most visited after English — During World War II, Unit 731 of the Japanese military undertook horrific medical experimentation in Manchukuo (Northeast China).

Tweets: @edfrench, @yumikosatomtbc, @slate, @yumikosatomtbc, @cambskeptics, @martinsfp, and @yumikosatomtbc

Joe Williams / Protocol:

Interview with CEO of DocuSign, whose sales grew 57% YoY to $431M in Q4, on its plans to expand beyond e-signatures as the market heated up during the pandemic — Electronic signatures have been legal since President Bill Clinton signed off on legislation in 2000.

More: iTnews. Tweets: @protocol, @joepwilliams31, @martinsfp, @owenthomas, @joepwilliams31, @protocol, and @protocol

Axios:

Rep. Cicilline says he's crafting around 10 smaller antitrust bills, to be ready in May, instead of a one huge bill that would be easier for Big Tech to defeat — The powerful Democrat overseeing antitrust legislation wants to hit Big Tech with the legislative equivalent of a swarm …

Tweets: @benedictevans, @ianbetteridge, @benedictevans, @ianbetteridge, @benedictevans, @antondinev, @florianederer, @benedictevans, @carnage4life, @davemcclure, @benthompson, @charlesarthur, @davewiner, @benedictevans, and @benedictevans

Bloomberg:

ironSource, which makes user acquisition tech for app devs, will go public through a merger with Thoma Bravo's SPAC that values the combined business at $11.1B — Thoma Bravo's blank-check firm has reached an agreement to take app software company ironSource public through a merger that values the combined business at $11.1 billion.

More: CTech

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From Mediagazer

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:

Interview with WPP CEO Cindy Rose, who says AI puts pressure on the ad agency's pricing and WPP has 10K data scientists and software engineers and 12K creatives

Paul Glynn / BBC:

HarperCollins UK drops children's author and comedian David Walliams following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward young women

Ken Vogel / @kenvogel:

Politico ends its print edition after 19 years, as its early reliance on print ad revenue fades and its audience relies more on digital platforms

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More News

Just Security:

A list of questions that experts think CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google should be asked during the March 25 House committee hearing on misinformation

Tweets: @neilturkewitz, @gretchenspeters, @jasonwbade, @informor, @janinezacharia, @richardroyster, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @jason_kint, @yaeleisenstat, and @justinhendrix

Anna Kramer / Protocol:

Profile of Yubo, a social media app for teens to connect with strangers, which saw engagement increase nearly 400% in the last year and has at least 40M users

Tweets: @protocol

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

A look at Facebook's “Red Team X”, an internal hacking team founded in 2020, which probes 3rd-party tech Facebook uses for hardware and software vulnerabilities

Tweets: @johnjhacking, @gadgetlab, @lilyhnewman, and @ajxchapman

Cat Ferguson / MIT Technology Review:

Experts discuss challenges of building government tech, including legacy systems, regulatory complexity, lack of data sharing between departments, and more

Tweets: @shashashasha, @camcritt, @mattbernius, @annelies_goger, and @techreview

Gita Jackson / VICE:

As videos from court hearings on Zoom go viral, a look at the debate over privacy of citizens in those videos and judicial transparency on the internet

Tweets: @kari_paul, @jason_koebler, @digiphile, @misupremecourt, and @motherboard

Ann-Marie Alcántara / Wall Street Journal:

After Citigroup erroneously sent $900M to lenders using Oracle's Flexcube, some are calling for simplified business software UX to match consumer-facing design

More: Bloomberg. Tweets: @ajitpai, @kptkutero, @hkanji, @jrichlive, @hhorsley, @ldignan, @bergmayer, @batteryventures, @pendoio, and @jchernov

Earlier Picks

Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:

Facebook's decision to crack down on NYU's Ad Observer highlights the increasingly fraught dynamic between tech companies and academics

Bobby Allyn / NPR:

Interview with CEO of SkySilk, the hosting company that helped bring Parler online, who says he did it to spite tech giants like Amazon who abuse their might

Tweets: @davetroy, @jimstinnett, @tompalmsprings, @gelliebeans1, @rojawi, @davidfolkenflik, @npr, @bobbyallyn, and @tundrawolfqueen

Bloomberg:

Weee!, an online grocer specializing in Hispanic and Asian foods, has raised $315M Series D led by DST Global, source says at a $2.8B valuation

More: Insider. Tweets: @sonjalee, @post_market, @cristinagberta, @davelu, @joshelman, and @joshelman

Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:

REvil ransomware gang says it had breached Acer, sharing leaked images of internal docs on the dark web, and is demanding $50M; Acer says it is investigating

More: BleepingComputer, PCMag, MUO, Forbes, Engadget, CRN, and SearchSecurity

Tweets: @hackinggavin and @lisagshort

Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:

Coinbase will pay a $6.5M fine to settle with the CFTC, over allegations that it self-traded cryptocurrencies between 2015 and 2018

More: CFTC, SiliconANGLE, Engadget, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, NewsBTC, Cointelegraph, BitcoinExchangeGuide, Decrypt, and Reuters

Tweets: @edanyago, @cipher_blade, @ann_arcana, @evan_lorenz, @jeffjohnroberts, @davidshares, @sbf_alameda, and @ahcastor

Sean Keane / CNET:

Twitter confirms it's testing an “Undo Tweet” feature, first discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, who suggests it could be part of Twitter's planned subscriptions

More: TechRadar, The Next Web, The Verge, Mashable, MUO, 9to5Mac, BGR India, Neowin, and Gizmodo

Tweets: @wongmjane, @smashdawg, @jangles, @threddyrex, @quinnypig, @kellyrippin, @stephanieyeboah, @cnet, @wongmjane, and @mattnavarra