Techmeme
March 21, 2018, 3:45 PM

Top News

Mark Zuckerberg:
Zuckerberg says Cambridge Analytica breached Facebook's trust, which caused Facebook to break users' trust, and vows to prevent it from happening again  —  I want to share an update on the Cambridge Analytica situation — including the steps we've already taken and our next steps to address this important issue.
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Brian Acton, who cofounded WhatsApp, which was acquired by Facebook for $16B, tweeted “It is time. #deletefacebook”  —  Facebook bought his app for $16 billion  —  In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $16 billion, making its co-founders — Jan Koum and Brian Acton — very wealthy men.
Wired:
With the storm over user data misuse intensifying into a hurricane, Facebook now faces several vexing questions about its opaque privacy practices  —  Two weeks ago, Facebook learned that The New York Times, Guardian, and Observer were working on blockbuster stories based on interviews with a man named Christopher Wylie.
Matthew Yglesias / Vox:
Zuckerberg and other executives are in denial: Facebook is not a force for good, having helped destroy industries and break societies, and should be shuttered  —  It's not just about privacy; its core function makes people lonely and sad.  —  Facebook is enmeshed in another controversy …
Paul Ford / Bloomberg:
Washington Post:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sources: Google is buying Lytro, the imaging startup that uses its light field tech in VR, for about $40M; one source describes deal as an “asset sale”  —  Last week, Google showed off a new app to display immersive photography in virtual reality, and a multi-camera technique for capturing it …
David Meyer / Fortune:
The European Commission proposes a 3% tax on EU revenues of companies with global annual revenues of €750M+, like Google, Facebook, and Amazon  —  The European Commission wants to see big tech firms pay a 3% tax on some of their revenues.  This is a major break from the traditional way of calculating tax based on profits.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple executive Jimmy Iovine will transition into a consulting role in August and step back from daily involvement with Apple Music  —  The music executive and Beats co-founder will step back from daily involvement with Apple's streaming-music business
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Google's global head of music, Lyor Cohen, says YouTube will start putting more ads in between music videos to encourage subscriptions to upcoming music service  —  It's a cultural change for a company that was built on free  —  YouTube will increase the number of ads that some users …
Raymond Wong / Mashable:
Privacy bug in iOS lets Siri read out hidden content from third-party app notifications on lock screens  —  On iOS 11, Apple introduced a new way to protect user privacy by letting you hide the contents of your notifications on your iPhone's lock screen until you unlock the device with Touch ID or Face ID.
Rita El Khoury / Android Police:
Amazon's in-home delivery service app Key adds fingerprint authentication support on Android  —  Amazon's Key in-home delivery service was announced last October and its cameras and smart door locks became available in November.  Since then, Amazon has been able to use Key to place …
Simon Shuster / TIME:
Investigation finds Russian businessmen and senior Kremlin advisers secretly helped Venezuela launch its Petro cryptocurrency, aimed at eroding US sanctions  —  President Donald Trump may not have realized on Monday that his executive order would step on Russia's toes.
Johana Bhuiyan / Recode:
Travis Kalanick becoming CEO of City Storage Systems, which focuses on repurposing real estate, and says his new fund is acquiring a $150M controlling interest  —  The company was formerly called CloudKitchens and was led by Diego Berdakin, an early Uber investor.  —  Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has found his new job.

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Earlier Picks

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: