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December 17, 2020, 7:40 AM
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| Gilad Edelman / Wired: |
A look at allegations in Texas AG's antitrust suit, accusing Google of giving Facebook special privileges in exchange for not supporting a competing ad system — A new antitrust case against Google alleges that the two companies made a deal to reduce competition in online advertising.
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New York Times, United States District Court, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Business Insider, Axios, VentureBeat, Reuters, MarketWatch, The Next Web, Politico, The Irish Times, CNBC, Texas Attorney General, Bloomberg, Reuters, Gizmodo, BBC, Firstpost Tech, The Information, and Bloomberg
Tweets: @txag, @robinberjon, @parismarx, @linamkhan, and @moonalice
| Diane Bartz / Reuters: |
Source: a bipartisan group of 30+ state attorneys general will sue Google on Thursday, accusing Google of favoring its own products in search results — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google, already facing lawsuits by the U.S. Justice Department and attorneys general led by Texas …
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Washington Post, Politico, The Verge, The Hill, and 9to5Google
Tweets: @ousfourita, @dseetharaman, @jason_kint, @daiwaka, @dseetharaman, @tayhatmaker, @jowens510, and @kylenabecker
| Tom Warren / The Verge: |
Facebook hits back at Apple with a second full-page newspaper ad today, says upcoming iOS changes will “change the internet as we know it - for the worse” — Facebook isn't done criticizing Apple just yet — Facebook is stepping up its campaign against Apple's privacy changes with a second full-page newspaper ad today.
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MacRumors, Protocol, Hindustan Times, Ubergizmo, iMore, CNBC, iLounge, Patently Apple, WRAL TechWire, and phonearena.com. Tweets: @gadgetsboy
| Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: |
Apple responds to Facebook's criticism of iOS 14 privacy measures, says Facebook won't be forced to change how it tracks users, but it must give users a choice — Apple has responded to Facebook's criticism over an upcoming iOS 14 privacy measure — specifically a change that will require users …
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Daring Fireball, The Verge, Engadget, International Business Times, 9to5Mac, iPhone Hacks, Pocketnow, Apple Terminal, and SiliconANGLE
Tweets: @arainert, @ldrogen, @s_oehler, @tomwarren, and @dhh
| Wall Street Journal: |
Facebook says it will assist Epic Games in its legal battle against Apple, including providing supporting documents — Social-networking company also dials up criticism of Apple's plan to allow iPhone users to restrict access to personal data — Facebook Inc. said it would assist …
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Facebook for Business, New York Times, Axios, CNET, and Philip Elmer‑DeWitt
Tweets: @morfid_plays, @timsweeneyepic, @cheratomo, @can, @jstrauss, @shiraovide, and @karissabe
| Bloomberg: |
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About Facebook, The Guardian, BGR, CNN, Washington Post, Fast Company, SlashGear, 9to5Mac, Mashable, iMore, Protocol, and AppleInsider
Tweets: @tomwarren, @waltmossberg, @mosseri, @mosseri, @davestangis, @johnpaczkowski, @mikeisaac, @mkarolian, @fbnewsroom, @ralphhhenson, @mikeisaac, @rsgnl, @carolecadwalla, @moonalice, @benedictevans, @larakiara, @jason_kint, @blackamazon, @emdubin, @caseynewton, @davepell, @wolfiechristl, @eric_seufert, @mosseri, @alexlindsay, @rmac18, @allenholub, @moonalice, @fboversight, @iamtherog, @jeremybmerrill, @joshuajames, @eric_seufert, @jason_kint, @samfbiddle, @bdsams, @amy_siskind, @kfury, @jasperboerstra, @alexhern, @jeremiahjw, @eric_seufert, @glennf, @kentbye, @glennf, @liviamcapital, @markoff, @donie, @brendonbigley, @chronic, @kantrowitz, @dhh, @kantrowitz, @reckless, @sandofsky, @matthewstoller, @alfredwkng, @kevinroose, @pkafka, @moonalice, @pkafka, and @tonyromm
| Washington Post: |
CISA's Einstein, which cost billions and monitors US agencies' networks for bad actors, missed the SolarWinds hack, which now counts the NIH among its victims — When Russian hackers first slipped their digital Trojan horses into federal government computer systems, probably sometime in the spring …
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Krebs on Security, New York Times, Wired, Politico, The Verge, BBC, GeekWire, The Register, The Guardian, and Forbes
| Thomas P. Bossert / New York Times: |
Ex-Homeland Security Adviser: the magnitude of the Solarwinds breach is hard to overstate and the remediation effort alone will be staggering — The magnitude of this national security breach is hard to overstate. — Mr. Bossert was the homeland security adviser to President Trump …
Tweets: @tombossert, @kylieatwood, @dnvolz, @dandrezner, @nicoleperlroth, @kaitlancollins, @dnvolz, @ewong, @alaneyre1, @normative, @marcambinder, @dnvolz, @jonhurwitz, and @brett_mcgurk
| Jack Morse / Mashable: |
Twitter says it will stop prompting users to Quote Tweet, restoring the standard RT functionality, and says QT use increased but overall sharing dropped by 20% — Well, it was worth a shot. — Twitter announced Wednesday that it will cease prompting users to quote tweet in lieu of the standard retweet.
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The Verge, MacRumors, Neowin, 9to5Mac, Pocket-lint, Big Technology, and SlashGear
Tweets: @twittersupport, @twittersupport, @twittersupport, @twittersupport, @javi_draws, @wongmjane, @noupside, @grabmybuttsticc, @katebevan, @sethamandel, @parkermolloy, @yoda, @luulubuu, @jillpantozzi, @kerubright, @jmj, @aelkus, @mashable, @kevinbparry, @nkulw, @anthony, @immort4l_legacy, and @villainmorris
| Makena Kelly / The Verge: |
Twitter says it will start removing tweets that spread harmful COVID-19 vaccine misinformation starting next week and will label conspiracies starting in 2021 — It may apply labels early in 2021 — Twitter announced Wednesday that it will remove tweets making false or misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccinations.
More:
Twitter, Social Media Today, help.twitter.com, Chicago Tribune, and Neowin
Tweets: @twittersafety, @daveyalba, @oneunderscore__, @noupside, @markdistef, and @yoyoel
| Bloomberg: |
A group of AI researchers at Google have asked for policy and leadership changes including the removal of VP Megan Kacholia from their reporting hierarchy — - Team says it must be able to contest Google ‘revenue agendas’ — Letter to CEO asks company to commit to academic integrity
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Axios, NPR, CNN, CNBC, and Reuters
Tweets: @josheidelson, @joelgrus, @josheidelson, and @business
| Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: |
Substack launches Substack Reader, an RSS reader for tracking newsletter subscriptions and other feeds, in beta — Substack Reader is now available in beta — If you're worried about all your newsletter subscriptions getting lost in your inbox, Substack may have a solution.| Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic: |
A pessimistic look at Facebook and its enormous, uncontrollable impact on the US and world, giving Zuckerberg incredible power with little oversight — The Doomsday Machine was never supposed to exist. It was meant to be a thought experiment that went like this: Imagine a device built … | The Guardian: |
Invoices show Israeli surveillance firm Rayzone leased access to SS7 traffic from a Channel Islands mobile operator to spy on cell communications and locations — The Israeli private intelligence company Rayzone Group appears to have had access to the global telecommunications network via …
More:
The Bureau of Investigative …. Tweets: @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @zackwhittaker, @jsrailton, @2b_as, @fabiochiusi, @vijayshekhar, @tbij, @jsrailton, @marietjeschaake, @razhael, @ronwyden, @karlbode, and @campuscodi
| Vikas SN / The Economic Times: |
Google unveils an open source multilingual language model supporting 16 Indian languages to help researchers and students build tech in local languages — Google has unveiled a machine learning tool for Indian languages to help researchers, students, and startups keen on building local language technologies …
More:
Android Police, The Next Web, TechCrunch, Official Google India Blog, and XDA Developers. Thanks:@tsuvik
| FinSMEs: |
BigID, which helps monitor and protect enterprise customers' data, raises $70M Series D led by Salesforce Ventures and Tiger Global at a valuation of $1B+ — BigID, a NYC-based leader in data discovery and intelligence for privacy, protection and perspective, raised $70Mm in series D financing … | Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: |
French P2P payments startup Lydia raises $86M led by Accel, as an extension of its Series B, bringing total of its Series B round to $131M — French fintech startup Lydia has extended its Series B round. Accel is leading the extension with all major existing shareholders also participating.| Dawn Kawamoto / San Francisco Business Journal: |
Upstart, whose P2P lending software uses AI to make credit decisions and eliminate fraud, closes at $29.47 per share, up 47.4% on its first day of trading — Upstart soared 47.4% on its first day as a newly minted public company Wednesday, a marked contrast to the rocky IPO debut of Bay Area e-commerce company Wish.
More:
MarketWatch and PYMNTS.com
| Ryan Browne / CNBC: |
GoCardless, which processes direct debit payments for businesses, raises $95M led by Bain Capital at a $970M valuation — - Payments technology start-up GoCardless raised $95 million in an investment round that values it at $970 million. — GoCardless plans to capitalize on an emerging trend …
More:
TechCrunch, Telegraph, and PYMNTS.com
| Tony Wan / EdSurge: |
Austin-based Aceable, which offers online training courses in driver's ed, real estate, and more, raises $50M Series C led by private equity firm HGGC — As Blake Garrett was bouncing around ideas for a new business in 2012, he had some sense of what he wanted to build.
More:
TechCrunch
| Ben Brody / Bloomberg: |
FTC's antitrust suit against Facebook seeks to break it up, unlike DOJ's more measured strike against Google, which asks only for “structural relief as needed” — The U.S. Federal Trade Commission jolted the market on Dec. 9 with filings that seek to force Facebook Inc. to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.
Tweets: @jessefelder
| Katie Jennings / Forbes: |
Curai, a chat-based telemedicine service helping doctors make better and faster decisions about patient care, raises $27.5M Series B led by Morningside Group — I am a staff writer covering healthcare. Email me at kjennings@forbes.com. — Telemedicine makes doctors more accessible … | Washington Post: |
A look at the “grinch bots” tailored to help resellers know when hot holiday gifts like the PS5 are in stock, and complete orders faster than humans can — Bots, easily gamed retailers and supply shortages have caused consoles to sell for double the price — This Christmas, it's boy vs. bot.| Nikki Sun / Nikkei Asia: |
China's government is rethinking its tolerant attitude towards monopolies, fearing too much power, driven by the rise of huge tech conglomerates like Ant Group — Alibaba, Tencent and a host of internet giants face new scrutiny from the Party — HONG KONG — When China's business regulator …
Tweets: @nikkeiasia, @napolitanodean, and @hk_nikkisun
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