Techmeme: Behind “GoodGoogle”, a service for depleting your competitor's AdWord budget via click fraud (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

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July 27, 2014, 10:15 PM

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Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Amazon apparently set to launch Square-competitor in August as it develops biometric payment solutions — Amazon could be preparing to launch its own mobile credit card reading hardware in the coming weeks, according to internal Staples documents hinting at such a launch that we've obtained.

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Engadget and Electronista

Robin Sloan / Medium:

Why Minecraft is a phenomenon: it requires its players to co-create it — The secret of Minecraft — And its challenge to the rest of us — It's almost inevitable: I encounter Minecraft somewhere online—it's easy to do, because there's a lot of Minecraft out there—and I end up convinced I'm doing the wrong thing with my life.

More: The Verge. Tweets: @pomeranian99, @burritojustice, @robinsloan, @johnolilly and @mparekh

Will Oremus / Slate:

Facebook's privacy pivot: Mark Zuckerberg's plan to win back trust — Why Mark Zuckerberg is trying to win back users' trust. — Remember when Mark Zuckerberg didn't believe in privacy? When he argued that it was “no longer a social norm”? When Facebook employees wouldn't even use the word …

More: bizjournals. Tweets: @howardlindzon

Ellen Huet / Forbes:

Snapchat stars begin making lucrative advertising deals to create “authentic” branded content — Snaps To Riches: The Rise Of Snapchat Celebrities — Shaun McBride takes no risks when drawing a Snapchat. He takes screenshots instead, to protect his works in progress in case of calamity.

More: TIME. Tweets: @stevecheney

Barb Darrow / Gigaom:

AWS in fight of its life as customers like Dropbox ponder hybrid clouds and Google pricing — AWS doesn't have the public cloud to itself anymore. It faces two gigantic competitors trying to poach reference customers and growing adoption of hybrid cloud. — For many years Amazon Web Services was the only public cloud in town.

More: ReadWrite, Gigaom Research, DIGITS to DOLLARS and The Register

Tweets: @simonkhalaf, @levie, @howardlindzon, @stevesi and @tomkrazit

Thanks:@reckel

Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:

Behind “GoodGoogle”, a service for depleting your competitor's AdWord budget via click fraud — Service Drains Competitors' Online Ad Budget — The longer one lurks in the Internet underground, the more difficult it becomes to ignore the harsh reality that for nearly every …

More: PC Magazine and PandoDaily

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple Stores to soon open up iPhone sales via AT&T Next, T-Mobile JUMP, & Verizon Edge — Apple is preparing a significant expansion of its iPhone sales capabilities in its official retail stores, according to sources. Late in August, many Apple Stores in the United States will kick off …

More: MacRumors and Business Insider

Hayley Tsukayama / Washington Post:

As broader immigration reform stalls, Y Combinator lobbies for expanding O1A visas to founders accepted into incubators — With immigration reform off the agenda, some in tech turn to plan B — Maybe we can't reform the whole immigration system, but the startup world just wants this one thing.

Tweets: @m2jr, @garrytan and @alexisohanian

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 includes support for folders and interactive cases — Microsoft is planning to release its first update to Windows Phone 8.1 soon, and the company has started detailing some of the upcoming features to phone manufacturers. One of the main visual changes with Update 1 …

More: nokiapoweruser.com, nokiapoweruser.com, Ubergizmo, Softpedia News, WMPoweruser, WinBeta, Engadget, WMPoweruser and Softpedia News. Tweets: @tomwarren

Alex Wawro / Gamasutra:

How Glu Mobile refit an earlier game to make chart-topping “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” — Q&A: Keeping up with hit mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood — Reality TV star and actress Kim Kardashian has conquered everything from cable TV to bottled water with some stupendous branding tactics.

More: Vulture, Jezebel, Slate, TIME, E! Online, Bloomberg, Daily Dot, Washington Post, Forbes, PC Magazine, MarketWatch, Quora, Polygon and TechCrunch

Brendan Sasso / National Journal:

Cable Companies: Google Threatens Net Neutrality, Not Us — Internet service providers are urging the FCC to regulate popular websites. — The real threat to online freedom is from Internet giants like Google and Netflix, according to major cable companies.

More: Ars Technica, DSLreports, DSLreports and The PhoneBoy Blog

Tweets: @jeffjarvis and @happyinwater

John McDuling / Quartz:

Pandora and Spotify face uncertain future with giants Google, Apple, and Amazon encroaching — An epic battle in streaming music is about to begin, and only a few will survive — “One thing is for sure,” declared an influential American critic and record industry analyst, Bob Lefsetz …

Tweets: @tcarmody, @papadimitriou and @jeffmignon. Thanks:@jmcduling

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