Techmeme: Google rejects calls to remove Absher, an app from the Saudi government to help men in the country track and dictate where women can travel, from the Play store (Bill Bostock/Business Insider)

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March 3, 2019, 5:20 PM

Top News

Ari Levy / CNBC:

Sources: Rakuten, which owns a 13% stake in Lyft, made the investment in 2015 after data from its consumer purchase tracker Slice showed Lyft was undervalued — - Rakuten invested $300 million in Lyft in 2015, when the ride-hailing company was trying to avoid being crushed by Uber.

More: SEC and TechCrunch

Tweets: @ranimolla, @jonorcutt, @mdudas, @bizcarson, and @darakerr

Fast Company:

A list of 121 data brokers operating in the US, available due to a new Vermont law requiring companies who buy and sell third-party personal data to register — You've probably never heard of many of the data firms registered under a new law, but they've heard a lot about you. A list, and tips for opting out.

Tweets: @alexstamos, @hoofnagle, @tiffanycli, @antoniogm, @antoniogm, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @neerajka, @wolfiechristl, @joelwinston, @alexstamos, @carnage4life, @irinissima_, @alexstamos, @pasternack, and @wolfiechristl

Bill Bostock / Business Insider:

Google rejects calls to remove Absher, an app from the Saudi government to help men in the country track and dictate where women can travel, from the Play store — - Google has rejected calls to remove a Saudi government app which offers a tool for men to control where women travel.

More: The Verge, Patently Apple, Gizmodo, Boing Boing, Geek News Central, TechSpot, Phandroid, and Engadget

Tweets: @re_sieber, @bryanlunduke, @techworkersco, @rmac18, @abirghattas, @mcmillen, @maryamalkhawaja, @kenroth, @ldrogen, @nickhanauer, and @lbraccio

Alison Griswold / Oversharing:

An analysis of data between August and December 2018 from Louisville, KY estimates that the average lifespan of shared scooters in the city was 28 days — CXLIV — Hello and welcome to Oversharing, a newsletter about the proverbial sharing economy. If you're returning from last week, thanks!

More: Mashable, ExtremeTech, The Overspill, Mercury News, and Boing Boing

Tweets: @benbajarin, @carnage4life, @hoofnagle, @sohear, @davegershgorn, and @davegershgorn

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Intel CEO Bob Swan and executives Sandra Rivera and Dan McNamara discuss Intel's strategy around 5G, its investments in modems, memory chips, GPUs, and more — Only the strong assets survive. That's what I said after Bob Swan, the newly appointed CEO of Intel, talked about his view …

Tweets: @techtalli

Shwanika Narayan / San Francisco Chronicle:

Tristan O'Tierney, a Square co-founder who created the company's first mobile app, dies at age 35 from causes likely related to addiction — Tristan O'Tierney, a co-founder of San Francisco payments company Square, died Feb. 23 in Ocala, Fla., of causes related to addiction, his family said.

More: Bloomberg, CNBC, Business Insider, Fox News, TechCrunch, and Newser

Tweets: @owenthomas, @stevestreza, @buzz, and @mitsuhiko

The Guardian:

Leaked Facebook memo describes company's lobbying efforts in 2012 and 2013 against a proposed European data directive which later became GDPR, more — Social network targeted legislators around the world, promising or threatening to withhold investment — Facebook has targeted politicians around …

More: Business Insider, ComputerWeekly.com, FutureSin, Mashable, and Slashdot

Tweets: @klillington, @tara_deschamps, @hhariri, @carolecadwalla, @baekdal, @stalfel, @sarahfrier, @tom_watson, and @hshaban

Will Oremus / Slate:

Picking a VPN to trust is a problem, but as demand grows, there's incentive for the industry to outgrow its Wild West phase and develop industry standards — Virtual private networks are now a must-have privacy tool. But good luck figuring out which ones will actually make you safer.

Tweets: @boblord, @henrygrabar, @abenedikt, @lousylinguist, @gadyepstein, @profcarroll, and @willoremus

Cade Metz / New York Times:

Sources: CEO of AI startup Clarifai says internal ethics officers do not suit small companies and that Clarifai would one day supply autonomous weapons — HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — When a news article revealed that Clarifai was working with the Pentagon and some employees questioned the ethics …

Tweets: @aimeevanrobot, @david_gunkel, @frankpasquale, @nytimes, @techworkersco, and @anabmap

Jon Victor / The Information:

Source: Circle, which runs a cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex and which was reportedly valued at ~$3B last year after raising $246M, is raising another $250M — Circle, one of the biggest cryptocurrency startups in the U.S., is seeking to raise about $250 million in a combination of equity and debt …

More: CryptoGlobe, SludgeFeed, Cointelegraph, and The Block

Caroline O'Donovan / BuzzFeed News:

Amazon removes at least three anti-vaccination documentaries from Prime Video hours after Rep. Schiff sent letter to Bezos regarding anti-vaccine misinformation — Amazon appears to have removed anti-vaccination documentaries from search results on Amazon Prime Video today …

More: schiff.house.gov, SlashGear, The Daily Dot, Gizmodo, Business Insider, CNN, The Hill, Axios, Engadget, and The Verge

Tweets: @jonsarlin, @ceodonovan, @ceodonovan, @ceodonovan, and @ceodonovan

Jeff Wise / OneZero:

Critics and parents question the ethics of using edutainment games like Prodigy, which has a freemium business model that relies on in-app purchases, in schools — Kids love “edutainment,” but does the business model exploit them? — erched on a rise overlooking the Hudson River …

Tweets: @medium and @dlberes

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:20 PM ET, March 3, 2019.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Gary Baum / The Hollywood Reporter:

A look at the first “case” brought before Objection, which aims to use AI to evaluate news stories, and a Q&A with Objection's founder; the site is now dark

Marah Eakin / Current:

Fred Rogers Productions launches a Mister Rogers' Neighborhood YouTube channel, curating content based on monthly themes and focusing on reach over monetization

Daniel Arkin / NBC News:

Gene Shalit, a longtime film critic for NBC's Today who was with the show from 1970 until his retirement in 2010, dies at 100

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More News

Janet Morrissey / New York Times:

A look at on-demand medical startups in the US like Heal and The I.V Doc, which are helping users get treatment for nonemergency problems at home or work

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Ordr, a network-level cybersecurity platform which uses AI to flag suspicious events in real time, comes out of stealth and says it has raised $16.5M Series A

More: FinSMEs

Ryan Broderick / BuzzFeed News:

Developers in Moldova say they reported misinformation and fake news in Moldova to Facebook for three years before the company took action in February

More: Engadget. Tweets: @johnpaczkowski and @janelytv

Chad Bray / South China Morning Post:

Accenture: global fintech funding more than doubled YoY to $55.3B in 2018, with China accounting for $25.5B, boosted by $14B raised by Ant Financial

More: The Straits Times, The Business Times, and Nikkei. Tweets: @davemcclure

The Guardian:

Uganda says the number of subscriptions to ~60 apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, declined by 2.5M in the three months after social media tax was introduced

More: New York Times, Daily Mail, and Techdirt

Tweets: @ljxie, @samidhas, @meadovian, @fp2p, and @glynmoody

Earlier Picks

BuzzFeed News:

Fact-checkers in India, including Facebook's fact-checking partners, say they have faced a deluge of misinformation on the tensions between India and Pakistan

Tweets: @sagared, @amy_keegan, @bryanrwalsh, @sivavaid, @cwellmon, and @vintuitive. Thanks:@pranavdixit

Romy Varghese / Bloomberg:

Cities across the US are using legacy software from the '80s built with obsolete programming languages and unfriendly user interfaces

More: SlashGear. Tweets: @bw, @gregghoush, @adamzea, and @robertmclaws

Joe McDonald / Associated Press:

Chinese government report: travelers in China were blocked 23M times from buying plane or train tickets in 2018 due to their poor “social credit”

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, and SlashGear

Tweets: @fkarlitschek and @nxthompson

Paul Grewal / Facebook:

Facebook and Instagram file lawsuit in US federal court against 4 companies and 3 people in China for promoting the sale of fake accounts, likes, and followers

More: Slashdot, MSPoweruser, Gizmodo, Search Engine Journal, Business Insider, Engadget, Social Media Today, TechCrunch, CNET, Reuters, and Notes from Silicon Valley

Tweets: @cbsthismorning, @jamestitcomb, and @blmohr

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Microsoft now lets Microsoft 365 users on Android take a picture of a printed data table and automatically convert it into an editable Excel spreadsheet