Techmeme
May 12, 2021, 10:10 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
US agrees to remove Xiaomi from blacklist that could have restricted American investment in the company, following Xiaomi's lawsuit earlier this year  —  - U.S. to vacate order designating company as military-linked  — Xiaomi had sued U.S. government following the Trump order
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Instagram will let users list up to four pronouns on their profiles, viewable to friends or the public, available in a “few countries”  —  You can make this public or only viewable to friends  —  Instagram is making it easier to address people by their defined pronouns.
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Researcher discovers a series of vulnerabilities, known as Frag Attacks, impacting Wi-Fi devices from the past 24 years, even when WEP and WPA are activated  —  A Belgian security researcher has discovered a series of vulnerabilities that impact the WiFi standard, with some bugs dating …
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Deep dive on the DarkSide ransomware gang, which pressures victims into paying via phone calls by affiliates, DDoS attacks, and threats of tipping short sellers  —  The FBI confirmed this week that a relatively new ransomware group known as DarkSide is responsible for an attack …
The Coinbase Blog:
Coinbase to ban pay negotiations in hiring and will offer the same pay to new hires in the same position and location; top performers to still get “multipliers”  —  Coinbase is always evolving.  In the last year, we've grown our headcount by 100%, hired in 6 new countries …
Maya Gebeily / Reuters:
Instagram and Twitter apologize for deleting pro-Palestine posts, blaming technical errors, but critics say their “discriminatory” algorithms are to blame  —  Instagram and Twitter have blamed technical errors for deleting posts mentioning the possible eviction of Palestinians …
Anna Cooban / Insider:
WhatsApp details the experience for those who don't agree to its new privacy policy, including losing access to calls, messages, and notifications  —  - WhatsApp will eventually stop users sending and receiving messages if they refuse a new privacy policy.  — If users do not agree to the policy …
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon wins appeal over $300M EU tax bill, as EU court annuls a 2017 decision, saying regulators had failed to prove that the company got an illegal advantage  —  Ruling deals a setback to EU competition chief who is seeking to rein in U.S. tech giants  —  Amazon. com Inc. struck a new blow …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple says that ~1M new apps and ~1M app updates were rejected in 2020, 470,000+ developer accounts were terminated over fraud concerns, and more  —  - Apple said it rejected almost 1 million apps that were submitted to its App Store for the first time in 2020.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube plans to pay $100M to top creators on YouTube Shorts, its TikTok competitor, through 2022, starting in the next few months in the US and India  —  YouTube is giving its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, an injection of cash to help it better compete with rivals.
MK Manoylov / The Block:
eBay says it will allow NFTs to be sold on its platform and will add new “capabilities” for blockchain-driven collectibles in the coming months  —  The online sales platform eBay is now permitting the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for digital collectibles.
Sam Dean / Los Angeles Times:
Snap suspends anonymous Q&A apps Yolo and LMK after lawsuit over teen's death, allegedly due to bullying messages  —  Yolo and LMK, two Snapchat apps that allow users to send anonymous messages, are no longer available to users of the social media platform after parent company Snap suspended them Tuesday.
More: The VergeTweets: @itsjeffhiggins
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Big Time Studios, started by ex-CEO of Decentraland, comes out of stealth with $21M to let game studios offer NFTs in their games  —  Did you miss GamesBeat Summit 2021?  Watch on-demand here!  —  Big Time Studios is going big this week with a funding round of $21 million to bring nonfungible tokens …
More: CoinDesk
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Treasury Prime, which develops APIs to help banks automate routine business processes, raises $20M Series B co-led by Deciens Capital and QED Investors  —  This morning Treasury Prime, a banking-as-a-service startup that delivers its product via APIs, announced that it has closed …
Riley de León / CNBC:
Online mortgage service Better.com to go public via a SPAC merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp. at $7.7B valuation; deal includes $1.5B SoftBank-led investment  —  - Digital mortgage lender Better will make its market debut by merging with Aurora Acquisition Corp., valuing the company at $7.7 billion.
Erika Kinetz / Associated Press:
Investigation: an army of fake bots covertly amplify Chinese propaganda on Twitter by retweeting posts from diplomats and state media tens of thousands of times  —  BRUSSELS (AP) — China's ruling Communist Party has opened a new front in its long, ambitious war to shape global public opinion: Western social media.
Tripp Mickle / Wall Street Journal:
Google says it plans to double the size of its team studying AI ethics in the coming years, as it looks to strengthen the group battered by recent controversies  —  CEO will boost operating budget of team tasked with evaluating code and product to avert discrimination and other problems

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Niantic Spatial:
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Zoho:
AWS WorkMail is shutting down: Migrate to a secure alternative without downtime  —  If your organization is currently using AWS WorkMail, this probably wasn't news you were expecting, but it is something …
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Sheelah Kolhatkar / New Yorker:

Earlier Picks

Michael Holden / Reuters:
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Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Karin Matussek / Bloomberg: