Techmeme
June 9, 2021, 10:40 AM

Top News

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
El Salvador becomes the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender after lawmakers voted by a “supermajority” in favor of its new Bitcoin Law  —  - El Salvador's has become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.  — Lawmakers in the South American country's Congress voted …
Associated Press:
Fastly, which was hit by a major outage on Tuesday, says the problem was caused by a bug that was triggered by a customer configuring their service  —  LONDON (AP) — Fastly, the company hit by a major outage that caused many of the world's top websites to go offline briefly this week …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Ad-supported and subscription-only newsletters both have ways to understand audiences without the tracking pixels blocked by Apple's Mail Privacy Protection  —  How Mail Protection Privacy will force the email economy to adapt  —  Today, let's talk about one of Apple's many announcements …
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Christina Wilkie / CNBC:
Biden admin announces steps to bolster US supply chains, including for chips and rare earth metals, and a “strike force” to combat unfair trade practices  —  - The Biden administration announces new actions designed to strengthen critical U.S. supply chains.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Biden signs an EO revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat and says his commerce secretary will investigate any risks to national security and privacy  —  But the apps still aren't out of hot water  —  President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat.
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Facebook and Instagram will now reward influencers with cash bonuses for hitting certain milestones, like selling a set number of badges in an Instagram stream  —  new tools to help its creators earn more money from the platform.  At its first Creator Week event, Mark Zuckerberg introduced …
Adam Mosseri / Instagram:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple Music debuts Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio and adds Spatial Audio playlists, says Spatial Audio support is “coming soon” for Android devices  —  Last month, Apple announced it would soon add lossless audio streaming and Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos to its Apple Music subscription at no extra charge.
Tom Simonite / Wired:
An inside look at how Google's Ethical AI team fell apart following the contentious departure of Timnit Gebru and then Margaret Mitchell  —  She was a star engineer who warned that messy AI can spread racism.  Google brought her in.  Then it forced her out.  Can Big Tech take criticism from within?
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Google is building a subsea cable called Firmina, after a Brazilian abolitionist, to handle data surge between US, Brazil, and Argentina, due to launch by 2023  —  Google is building a new subsea cable to get your megabits from Boston to Buenos Aires and back.
Jackie Borchardt / The Columbus Dispatch:
Ohio's AG files lawsuit with Delaware County Court alleging that Google's search business is anticompetitive and asks court to declare Google a public utility  —  Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has filed a lawsuit asking a court to declare Google a public utility that should be regulated as such.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sinch acquires MessageMedia, which provides SMS and other messaging services for businesses, for $1.3B, to compete with Twilio in business SMS services  —  Sinch — the Swedish company that provides a suite of services for companies to build communications and specifically “customer engagement” …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Contentstack, which offers a headless content management system, raises $57.5M Series B led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $89M  —  Contentstack, a startup that offers a headless content management system (or a ‘content experience platform’ in marketing speak) …
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
In a huge sting operation, FBI and Australian Federal Police ran an encrypted chat service AN0M for 3+ years to intercept messages between criminals globally  —  The FBI and Australian Federal Police ran an encrypted chat platform and intercepted secret messages between criminal gang members …
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Research: cost per click for Amazon search ads was $1.16 in May, up from $0.75 YoY; eMarketer says Amazon's ad revenue in the US will cross $20B this year  —  - Rates in May rose 50% from a year earlier, signaling profits  — Merchants look to raise prices to cover cost of visibility

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Earlier Picks

Meaghan Tobin / Rest of World:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Aoife White / Bloomberg:
Sam Byford / The Verge: