Techmeme
September 25, 2025, 1:40 PM

Top News

Financial Times:
Amazon reaches a $2.5B settlement with the FTC over deceptive Prime practices, with a $1B civil penalty and $1.5B in consumer redress, three days into the trial  —  Agreement includes largest penalty issued for violating consumer protection agency's rules  —  Amazon has reached a $2.5bn settlement …
The Guardian:
Sources: Microsoft terminated Israel's Unit 8200 access to Azure, after an investigation found the tech was used for mass surveillance in Gaza and West Bank  —  Exclusive: Tech firm ends military unit's access to AI and data services after Guardian reveals secret spy project
Apple:
Apple says the DMA exposes users to new risks, reduces choice by making iOS resemble Android, and creates unfair competition by not applying to Samsung  —  At Apple, we've always focused on creating technology that empowers people and enriches their lives.  We design our products to be intuitive …
France 24:
Apple asks the EU to repeal the DMA; EU rejects Apple's demand, saying it is “not surprised” as Apple has “contested every little bit” of DMA since day one  —  Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) - The European Union rejected a call by Apple to scrap its landmark digital competition law …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft Windows 10 users will receive free Extended Security Updates in the EEA without enabling Windows Backup, after pressure from the Euroconsumers group  —  You won't have to enable Windows Backup to get extended Windows 10 security updates in the European Economic Area.
Joel Drapper:
Sources allege that nonprofit Ruby Central took control of some Ruby open-source projects from their maintainers without consent, after pressure from Shopify  —  Ruby Central recently took over a collection of open source projects from their maintainers without their consent.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Neon, which pays users to record their phone calls and sells that audio data to AI companies for training, becomes the #2 social app on the US App Store  —  A new app offering to record your phone calls and pay you for the audio so it can sell the data to AI companies is, unbelievably …
Tabby Kinder / Financial Times:
A profile of AI skeptic Ed Zitron: Sam Altman's firing and return was his “Joker moment”, tech journalism is flawed, his brash persona is not a mask, and more  —  How a British-born hobbyist blogger became one of Big Tech's punchiest critics  —  Ed Zitron is not a journalist …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Xiaomi unveils 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max, available September 27 in China; Pro phones feature a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset and a back screen  —  The company could lay off the Apple comparisons a bit though. … A critic might accuse Xiaomi of copying Apple a little too closely …
Makini Brice / Reuters:
The EU launches an antitrust probe into SAP over its ERP software maintenance and support services, with a potential fine of ~10% of its annual global sales  —  The European Commission has opened an investigation into possible anticompetitive practices by Germany's SAP (SAPG.DE) …
Andrew E. Freedman / Tom's Hardware:
Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme chips for PCs, offering up to 18 cores, and says the latter is the first Arm chip to hit 5GHz  —  Systems with the chips are scheduled for the first half of 2026. … At its Snapdragon Summit in Maui, Hawaii …
Daniel Bader / Android Police:
Financial Times:
Circle president Heath Tarbert says Circle is exploring the possibility of reversible stablecoin transactions to allow refunds in cases of fraud or disputes  —  President says sector should learn from traditional finance and allow refunds in cases of fraud or disputes
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify updates its AI policy, including adopting the upcoming DDEX standard to label and identify AI music and rolling out a new music spam filter  —  Spotify on Thursday announced a series of updates to its AI policy, designed to better indicate when AI is being used to make music …
Oma Seddiq / Bloomberg:
xAI signed a deal with the GSA to offer Grok to US federal agencies for $0.42 per agency for 18 months, a discount to OpenAI's $1 per year for ChatGPT  —  - Follows recent deals with Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google  — xAI engineers to assist federal agencies with implementation
Alex Heath / Sources:
Sources: OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo has been meeting with potential candidates for a role overseeing monetization efforts, including ads in ChatGPT  —  Fidji Simo is on the hunt for someone to oversee all monetization efforts, including, yes, bringing advertising to ChatGPT.
NBC News:
Trump plans to sign a TikTok deal on Thursday; source: TikTok US would be run by a new joint venture company, with ByteDance holding less than 20% of its stock  —  This structure will comply with a bipartisan law passed in 2024 that sought to ban TikTok if the platform were not sold to U.S.-based owners this year.
Josh Taylor / The Guardian:
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Nothing plans to invest $100M to spin off budget brand CMF into an independent subsidiary, with India as its manufacturing and R&D headquarters  —  Hardware startup Nothing said Thursday that it plans to make its affordable device brand, CMF, into an independent subsidiary with India serving …

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Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Sabrina Ortiz / ZDNET: