Techmeme: Yahoo Directory Closes, Five Days Early (Danny Sullivan/Search Engine Land)

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December 29, 2014, 12:35 PM

Top News

Spiegel Online:

Snowden documents reveal the NSA routinely intercepted SSL/TLS traffic, decrypted VPN connections, struggled with PGP, Truecrypt, Tor, CSpace, OTR, ZRTP in 2012 — Inside the NSA's War on Internet Security — US and British intelligence agencies undertake every effort imaginable to crack …

More: The Hill, The Verge, PC World, ReadWrite, Engadget, Gizmodo, Slashdot, Paul Wouters …, Errata Security and Schneier on Security

Tweets: @yashalevine, @glynmoody, @dangillmor, @glynmoody, @mikko, @gwern, @benedictevans, @ggreenwald and @csoghoian

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac:

Apple introduces 14-day no questions asked refunds for App Store & iTunes in EU countries — Apple has recently introduced a new 14-day no questions asked return policy for iTunes, App Store and iBooks purchases in Europe including the UK, Germany, Italy, France, and many other EU countries.

More: Business Insider, MacRumors, AppleInsider, iMore, SlashGear, Cult of Mac, iLounge and App Advice. Tweets: @bzamayo. Thanks:@llsethj. See also Mediagazer

Re/code:

New King of Tech Startups: Smartphone Maker Xiaomi Raises $1.1 Billion at $45 Billion Valuation — Xiaomi has said it has closed a massive $1.1 billion round of funding that values the fast-growing Chinese phone maker at a jaw-dropping $45 billion, pre-money.

More: Bin Lin - Facebook, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Gigaom, 9to5Google, TIME, CNET, Android Authority, Reuters, New York Times, PE Hub Blog, Mashable, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Telegraph, Forbes, Android Beat and Tech in Asia

Tweets: @jonrussell and @ajs

Christopher Williams / Telegraph:

UK banks in talks to launch Apple Pay in 2015, execs concerned about data collection by Apple — UK banks in talks over Apple ‘wave and pay’ — Negotiations between the tech giant and at least one bank have proved tricky because of wrangling over the terms, including what data Apple will be able to access

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Sources: Microsoft is building a new, lightweight browser codenamed Spartan for Windows 10 — Microsoft is building a new browser as part of its Windows 10 push — Summary:Microsoft is planning to roll out a new browser when it debuts Windows 10, according to sources. But IE isn't going completely away.

More: VentureBeat, The Verge, SlashGear, Windows Phone Central and Neowin

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

Sony says ‘The Interview’ was rented or purchased more than 2M times, generated over $15M in online sales; Apple starts offering the movie on iTunes — ‘The Interview’ Generated Over $15 Million In Online Sales — Sony announced Sunday night that “The Interview” …

More: Variety, The Verge, Vox, Engadget, VatorNews, PandoDaily, Reuters, Engadget, New York Times, TechCrunch, Reuters, SiliconANGLE, The Verge, MacDailyNews, VentureBeat, The Inquisitr News, WebProNews, Gigaom, The Wrap, GeekWire, Tech Times, Broadband Traffic Management, NevilleHobson.com, TorrentFreak, Guardian and Fortune

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @stevekovach, @pkafka, @pkafka, @reckless, @drew and @pkafka

Steven Millward / Tech in Asia:

China's Great Firewall attacks Google once again, blocks any form of access to Gmail — Gmail users in China are now finding that Google's email service is totally inaccessible in the country. While Gmail's website has been blocked in China since June, along with every other Google service …

More: Reuters, New York Times, Mashable, SiliconANGLE, 9to5Google, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, The Register, TheDomains.com, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Beyond Search, Engadget, ITProPortal, VentureBeat, TIME, The Next Web and Associated Press

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

Yahoo Directory Closes, Five Days Early — The Yahoo Directory, the core part of how Yahoo itself began in 1994, officially closed today, five days ahead of when Yahoo had said the end would come. — If you try to reach the Yahoo Directory at its long-standing address of http …

More: MarketingVox News & Trends, WebProNews, Business Insider and ResearchBuzz. Tweets: @waxpancake. Thanks:@nethistorypod

Matthew Braga / Fast Company:

Archivist Daniel Rehn of wwwtxt, a cache of Internet content from 1980-94, finds similarities in conversations from then and now — WWWTXT: The Oldest Internet Archive — Los Angeles archivist Daniel Rehn has found a cache of “web text” that dates back to 1980. What's amazing is how much hasn't changed.

More: Gizmodo

James Temple / Re/code:

Pinterest finds Promoted Pins, currently in beta, are shared as often as organic pins, plans rollout to all partners on Jan. 1 — Pinterest to Unveil Early Results From Promoted Pins, as It Looks to Ramp Up Advertising — Pinterest* will unveil early results from one of its first formal …

More: New York Times, Pinterest for Business, Marketing Land, Ubergizmo, Mashable, The Next Web, WebProNews, VatorNews, TechCrunch, App Advice and internetretailer.com

Mark Gilbert / Bloomberg View:

Bitcoin was the worst-performing currency of 2014, dropping more than 56% to under $330 — And 2014's Worst Currency Was...Bitcoin — It's been a bad year for the Russian ruble and a terrible 12 months for the Ukrainian hryvnia. But it's been a catastrophic 2014 for Bitcoin, the virtual currency.

More: Re/code, PC Magazine, adafruit industries blog and NEWSBTC

Tweets: @chrismaddern, @steve_hanke and @zackwhittaker

Fred B. Campbell Jr / New York Times:

W3C to recommend allowing companies with whom users show an “intention to interact”, like a Facebook login, to track them, weakening “Do Not Track” efforts — The Slow Death of ‘Do Not Track’ — HAYMARKET, Va. — FOUR years ago, the Federal Trade Commission announced …

More: Tommy Collison's blog. Tweets: @stevesi, @darylsurat and @caseynewton

Jeff Grubb / VentureBeat:

PlayStation Network back online after three-day outage due to DDoS attack; Sony says some users may still experience intermittent issues — PSN is still down for some as Sony gets service back online — Sony says that its online service is back up and running, but many people are still having issues playing games.

More: PlayStation Blog, ABC News, Wall Street Journal, Tech Times, Wall Street Journal, CNNMoney.com, Inquirer, PC World, The Verge, Business Insider, PlayStation LifeStyle, The Register, Polygon, VentureBeat and New York Times

Tweets: @askplaystation, @askplaystation and @jeffgerstmann

William Turton / The Daily Dot:

Meet Lizard Squad, the group whose DDoS attack crippled Xbox Live and PlayStation Network

More: SiliconANGLE, Engadget, PlayStation LifeStyle, Polygon, Sky News, Gawker, The Inquisitr News, PC Magazine, Business Insider, Kotaku, Gizmodo and Kotaku

Tweets: @lizardmafia and @jaberman

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