Techmeme: Twitter details its anti-spam system BotMaker, claims it's reduced spam by 40% (Derrick Harris/Gigaom)

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August 21, 2014, 8:10 AM

Top News

Robert McMillan / Wired:

Security researcher claims over 30% of all mobile spam messages are sent through iMessage — Apple's iMessage Is Being Taken Over by Spammers — Apple's iMessage system is a great way to send texts from phone-to-phone without the paying fees to your mobile carrier.

More: 9to5Mac, MacRumors, Gizmodo, iPhone in Canada Blog, Electronista, iDownloadBlog.com and MacDailyNews

Ina Fried / Re/code:

Verizon Says It Has No Plans for Another App Store — Verizon threw cold water Wednesday on a report that it was in talks to set up another app store. — The Information reported that Verizon was talking with would-be partners about a marketplace designed to rival the Google Play storefront.

More: Ubergizmo, Reuters, ReadWrite, Droid Life, Gigaom and 9to5Google

Tweets: @amir, @amir, @sub8u, @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir, @amir and @karlbode

Dan Seifert / The Verge:

Verizon to launch its own app store to compete with Google Play, claims report

More: The Register, AdExchanger, Liliputing, FierceWireless, Light Reading, Android Authority, Pocketnow, DSLreports, SlashGear, The Information, Phandroid, Android Central, BGR, CITEworld, Electronista, Engadget, TechnoBuffalo and TechHive. Tweets: @nateingraham

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

Google Asked to Remove 1 Million Pirate Links Per Day — In the hope of steering prospective customers away from pirate sites, copyright holders are overloading Google with DMCA takedown notices. — These requests have increased dramatically since Google began making the data public.

More: Gizmodo, 9to5Google and Engadget

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

GoDaddy Acquires MailChimp Competitor Mad Mimi To Beef Up Its Email Marketing Service — GoDaddy has closed on the acquisition of MailChimp competitor Mad Mimi, the companies are announcing this morning. The move is meant to further expand the web hosting provider's product suite aimed at small businesses …

More: Mad Mimi Email Marketing Blog, StreetInsider.com, bizjournals, ZDNet, theWHIR.com, VatorNews and WebProNews

Nick Bilton / New York Times:

At Burning Man, the Tech Elite One-Up One Another — There are two disciplines in which Silicon Valley entrepreneurs excel above almost everyone else. The first is making exorbitant amounts of money. The second is pretending they don't care about that money.

More: The Huffington Post, sfbg.com, Reno Gazette-Journal, KTVN-TV and SFWeekly

Tweets: @noupside, @ssstrom, @mattrosoff, @galenmoore, @noupside, @nitashatiku, @nerdgirl, @vaurorapub, @evelynrusli, @pinboard, @jadmouawad, @jyarow, @ceciliakang and @noupside

Thanks:@nethistorypod

Mary Schlangenstein / Bloomberg:

UPS Store Computer Breach Put Customer Data at Risk — United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) said a breach of computer systems at UPS Store retail outlets may have exposed customers' personal and payment data at some locations this year. — Malware was found at 51 locations in 24 states …

More: UPS Pressroom, New York Times, ZDNet, Ars Technica, TIME, Computerworld, Los Angeles Times, CBS New York, Reuters, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, SC Magazine and Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @dangillmor

Steven Norris / Gearburn:

Savvy Imgur user builds working 1KB hard drive inside ‘vanilla’ Minecraft — Imgur user smellystring has officially changed my view of Minecraft - and he'll change yours as well. Below is a fully functional 1KB hard drive, created within Minecraft and it's incredible.

More: CNET, Gamezone, VG247, Ubergizmo, SlashGear and Geek.com

Derrick Harris / Gigaom:

Twitter details its anti-spam system BotMaker, claims it's reduced spam by 40% — Twitter details its anti-spam system, BotMaker — Twitter has developed a system called BotMaker to deal with its spam problem. Essentially, BotMaker scans messages before they're posted, after they're posted …

More: The Twitter Blog, Washington Post, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Engadget and The Next Web

Ginny Marvin / Marketing Land:

Google Rolls Out App Promotion Ads On Search And YouTube — App install and app re-engagement ads are now available globally. — Last spring, Google took the first step in upping its offerings for app developers in introducing app install and app re-engagement ads.

More: The Next Web, Inside AdWords, All Content, MediaPost, 9to5Google and WebProNews

Nellie Bowles / Re/code:

Secret Users Have Started Hosting Secret Dinner Parties, and They Are Brutal — Secret dinner party, said the intriguing post on Secret, an anonymous sharing app. — Invitations were application only, the host wrote in the comments. As instructed, I used an anonymous account to submit my best secret to a Google doc.

More: Engadget. Tweets: @caseynewton, @nytimesbits, @dorseyshaw, @laurengoode, @nelliebowles, @evelynrusli, @mike_hogan, @pkafka, @sg and @riptari

Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:

VMware buys CloudVolumes for real-time desktop app delivery — Summary: Buying the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company enables VMware to build real-time application delivery across all three of its technology focus areas. — Virtualization powerhouse VMware announced that it has acquired CloudVolumes …

More: VMware End-User Computing Blog, Office of the CTO, PC World, SiliconANGLE, Business Cloud News, Gigaom, The Register, eWeek, Virtualization Review and Data Center Knowledge

Dan Primack / Fortune:

Chain raises $9.5 million to build Bitcoin development platform — Chain today is launching as a startup that hopes to become the definitive development platform for Bitcoin, whether the ultimate application relates to financial services or to some other sort of decentralized service.

More: New York Times, CoinDesk, NEWSBTC, Re/code and Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @rre

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