Techmeme
December 10, 2020, 12:15 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Legal experts say FTC and state AGs will find it challenging to prove their allegations against Facebook because the standards of proof are formidable  —  The U.S. and states cases against the social network are far from a slam dunk because the standards of proof are formidable.
Federal Trade Commission:
FTC, in coalition with 46 state AGs, plus Guam and DC, sues Facebook, alleging Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions were used to stifle competition  —  Agency challenges Facebook's multi-year course of unlawful conduct  —  The Federal Trade Commission today sued Facebook …
Jennifer Newstead / About Facebook:
Facebook responds to the FTC and state AGs, saying the lawsuits they've brought forth are “revisionist history” and their antitrust case is unprecedented  —  Billions of people use Facebook's products every day.  To earn their time and attention, we compete fiercely against many other services across the world.
NY State Attorney General:
New York AG Letitia James leads a coalition of 48 AGs in suing Facebook, alleging the company uses a “buy or bury” approach toward its competitors  —  AG James Leads Bipartisan Coalition of 48 Attorneys General Charging Anticompetitive Conduct  —  Facebook Thwarted Competition, Reduced Consumer Privacy for Profits
The Verge:
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Dan Primack / Axios:
Airbnb raises $3.5B in its IPO at $68 per share, up from a previous $56-$60 range, giving it a fully diluted valuation of $47.3B  —  Airbnb on Wednesday raised $3.5 billion in its IPO at a fully diluted valuation of around $47.3 billion, and will begin trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol ABNB.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Germany launches an antitrust probe into Facebook tying Oculus use to possession of a Facebook account  —  Facebook's bad week just got worse: It's being investigated in Germany for linking usage of its VR product, Oculus, to having a Facebook account.  —  The tech giant raised the hackles …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Google launches knowledge panels in search results to show accurate information about coronavirus vaccines, starting with the UK  —  - Google has launched new knowledge panels to show people accurate information about coronavirus vaccines.  — The feature is only available in the U.K …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Adobe has released its final scheduled Flash Player update for all regions outside of mainland China and will block Flash content from January 12  —  Adobe releases final Flash update with stronger language asking users to uninstall the app before its EOL.  —  Adobe has released on Tuesday …
Washington Post:
National Weather Service says it has an Internet bandwidth problem and proposes limiting users to 60 connections/minute, which could hurt weather apps and sites  —  Agency floats a solution to problems that could hobble private companies and affect popular weather apps.
D. M. Moore / Polygon:
AT&T has agreed to sell Japanese anime streaming service Crunchyroll to Sony's Funimation Global Group for $1.18B  —  The move consolidates the anime industry in a major way  —  On Wednesday, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. announced that AT&T and WarnerMedia agreed to sell Crunchyroll to Funimation.
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic:
Inside Ovarit, an invite-only Reddit-like site founded by members of the “trans-exclusionary radical feminists” subreddit r/GenderCritical that Reddit banned  —  Mary Kate Fain, a 27-year-old engineer and writer living in Houston, has always considered herself a feminist.
Charlie Warzel / New York Times:
Biden staffers say their experiences in dealing with Facebook during the election left them concerned that the company is a threat to the electoral process  —  Inside the battle between Biden and Facebook.  —  Opinion Writer at Large  —  In the days after the election …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Internal memo: Sundar Pichai apologizes over the handling of AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru's departure and says he will investigate  —  Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized Wednesday for the company's handling of the departure of AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru and said he would investigate …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
French data protection agency CNIL fines Google $120M and Amazon $42M for placing tracking cookies without consent  —  France's data protection agency, the CNIL, has slapped Google and Amazon with fines for dropping tracking cookies without consent.  —  Google has been hit with a total …
Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:
Cleo, creator of an AI-powered financial assistance app and chatbot, raises $44M Series B led by EQT Ventures  —  Cleo, the London founded “financial assistant” that takes the form of an app and chatbot and now counts the U.S. as its largest market, has raised $44 million in Series B funding.
Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
Apple and Google to ban mobile apps that use location trackers from data broker X-Mode, after it was revealed X-Mode provided data to US government contractors  —  After the data broker came under scrutiny for national-security work, tech giants tell app developers to remove trackers or lose access to their operating systems

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