Techmeme: China's central bank tells Ant it must overhaul its lending, insurance, and wealth management businesses and come up with a timetable as soon as possible (Bloomberg)

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December 28, 2020, 9:40 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:

China's central bank tells Ant it must overhaul its lending, insurance, and wealth management businesses and come up with a timetable as soon as possible — - Authorities require Ant to overhaul business, set up timetable — Ant was blasted over governance, disdain toward compliance

Coco Liu / Bloomberg:

Alibaba raises proposed stock repurchase program by $4B to $10B, but shares slide 8%+, shedding $270B of value since its October peak amid antitrust fears — - Investors flee biggest names from Tencent to Meituan and JD — China probe coincides with clampdown on part-owned Ant Group

More: Wall Street Journal and China Internet Watch

Tweets: @jchengwsj and @niubi

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:

Kuo: Apple Car's unclear development schedule means it may launch in 2025-2027, while changes in EV/self-driving market may push the launch to 2028 — Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Apple is targeting 2024 for production of its long-rumored electric vehicle with “next level” …

Lee Brown / New York Post:

Nashville mayor says the Christmas day explosion in the city appears to have targeted an AT&T building, amid reports the suspect was paranoid about 5G — Nashville's mayor said Sunday that the city's Christmas blast appeared to be an “infrastructure attack” on the AT&T building there …

More: The Guardian, AT&T, WSMV-TV, The Tennessean, Washington Post, phonearena.com, International Business Times, and UPI

Tweets: @kurtbardella, @brianstelter, @hannonizer, @charlesarthur, @nc5_akoehn, @atthelp, @josephmenn, @justinhendrix, @rstephens, and @rolandixor

Coco Liu / Bloomberg:

Zuoyebang, which offers live-streamed classes and other remote study services and has 170 MAUs, raises $1.6B from Alibaba, Tiger Global, and others — - Zuoyebang's fundraising follows a $750 million round in June — Online learning has turned red-hot this year since pandemic

More: TechCrunch, Reuters, Nikkei Asia, and caixinglobal.com. Tweets: @grapefruitgals

Wency Chen / KrASIA:

Chinese online education startup Yuanfudao raises $300M from Jack Ma's Yunfeng Capital, bringing its total raised during 2020 to $3.5B — The high-flying company this year already snagged USD 3.5 billion from investors. — The high-flying online education company Yuanfudao …

More: Tech in Asia, Tech in Asia, and Pandaily

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:

A look at challenger search engines like UK-based Mojeek, You.com, and Neeva, founded by former Google execs, all targeting Google as it fights antitrust suits — Challengers such as Neeva bet on alternative approaches as tech giant faces regulatory scrutiny

Tweets: @francesca_bria, @psb_dc, @martinsfp, @paulnemitz, and @aghose

Scott Belsky / Medium:

Eight themes for the near future of tech: from decentralized workplaces and the rise of community-as-a-service to quirky social apps for kids under 16 — As we pull ourselves out of the ditch that was 2020, there are a few major themes of the future I'm particularly excited about.

More: Howard Lindzon. Tweets: @scottbelsky, @erickschonfeld, @om, @avidanross, @micahjay1, @benrbn, @satyap, @trengriffin, @soonaorlater, and @bill_gross

Kim Lyons / The Verge:

Citing environmental concerns, Xiaomi CEO says its flagship Mi 11 phone will not come with a charger in the box; Xiaomi mocked Apple earlier over the same issue — Xiaomi's CEO confirmed the decision on social media site Weibo — Lei Jun, the CEO of Chinese phone maker Xiaomi …

Greg Ip / Wall Street Journal:

Due to the pandemic, trends that normally may have taken years to unfold, like remote work or the shift from physical to virtual commerce, happened in months — Spurred by the pandemic, business changes that normally might have taken years unfolded in months.

Tweets: @jessefelder, @mileskimball, @mileskimball, and @csapkota

Michelle Gao / CNBC:

From working remotely to benefiting from the new normal, tech companies led the way in pandemic response but fell behind in stopping COVID-19 misinformation

Tweets: @mims, @mileskimball, @alecstapp, @joehall, @justrichwebster, @ruthbenghiat, @natbullard, @greg_ip, @cardiffgarcia, @shawndubravac, @karaswisher, @necn, @nbc10boston, and @gregorymcneal

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

A look at the worst hacks of 2020: SolarWinds, Twitter, Blueleaks, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Vastaamo, and Garmin — From ransomware schemes to supply chain attacks, this year melded classic hacks with extraordinary circumstances. — WHAT A WAY to kick off a new decade.

Financial Times:

South Korean antitrust regulators have asked Delivery Hero to sell its existing business before its $4B takeover of Woowa Brothers can go ahead — Seoul antitrust watchdog argues merger with Woowa Brothers would hurt competition — Delivery Hero's hopes of rapid expansion in Asia have hit …

More: Nikkei Asia

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From Mediagazer

CNN:

A list of times the Trump administration tested the limits of the First Amendment during his second term, stoking alarm among civil rights experts and critics

Paul Glynn / BBC:

HarperCollins UK drops children's author and comedian David Walliams following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward young women

Robert D. McFadden / New York Times:

Lou Cannon, a veteran Washington Post reporter who wrote several influential biographies of Ronald Reagan, has died at 92

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More News

Phred Dvorak / Wall Street Journal:

Data shows Japan's venture deal volume last year was less than a tenth of China's and 3% of the US'; in H1 2020, Japan's startup funding fell slightly YoY

Tweets: @thinkspection and @wsjasia

Benedict Mander / Financial Times:

Uruguay's first unicorn, the payment processor dLocal, and GeneXus, a sophisticated COVID-19 advice app, have put the country's tech scene on the global map

Sara Harrison / The Markup:

With $87M in political contributions, $200M spent on Prop 22, and record spending on federal lobbying, tech industry spent record amounts on politics in 2020

Sam Richards / The Intercept:

Documents detail CellHawk, a little-known surveillance tool used widely by law enforcement, which can visualize large amounts of data collected by cell towers

Tweets: @profferguson, @carlark3, @theintercept, and @theintercept

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Report: Indian startups raised ~$9.3B from 1,088 deals in 2020, lower than $14.5B from 1,185 deals in 2019; rounds of $100M+ fell from 26 in 2019 to 20 in 2020

More: The Economic Times

Kevin Randall / Wired:

With traffic to Chatroulette booming amid COVID, the team is testing AI tools to moderate content; it now offers a filtered channel designed to exclude nudity

Tweets: @sub8u, @taylorlorenz, and @evelyndouek

Miles Kruppa / Financial Times:

Study: the median valuation for SaaS companies raising their Series C rose by 40% to $210M this year, while their median revenue grew 20%

Tweets: @outsidadgitator, @julianklymochko, @trengriffin, and @caffeinatedinv1

Earlier Picks

New York Times:

Beijing's frenzied drive to free itself from a reliance on imported chips could prove to be one of the enduring legacies of Trump's trade policies toward China

Tweets: @orangeman1992, @nytimesbusiness, @nytimestech, and @jchengwsj

Lars Eidnes / ITNEXT:

Analysis of the top 1M pages on the web finds that HTTP/2 is now more common than HTTP/1.1; jQuery, Google Analytics were the top JavaScript libraries by usage

Reuters:

Mastercard SpendingPulse: US online holiday sales from Oct. 11 to Dec. 24 grew 49% YoY, for a 19.7% share of overall retail sales, up from about 13.4% in 2019

Source: Business Wire. More: PYMNTS.com, Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, and Fortune

Steven Overly / Politico:

Facebook critics say a general animosity toward Facebook in Washington may push the Biden administration into taking more proactive measures against the company

More: Washington Post, Associated Press, Slashdot, New York Times, and Bloomberg

Tweets: @marcoarment, @fboversight, @justinhendrix, @rededdy56, @bruno_j_navarro, @alfonslopeztena, and @jason_kint

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:

Apple's system status webpage indicates that the company has resolved an outage affecting iCloud Account and Sign In services

More: AppleInsider, BGR India, Engadget, Gizchina, The Verge, Gizmodo, PCMag, iMore, Redmond Pie, Fortune, MacRumors, BleepingComputer, and Forbes

Tweets: @jonathanirl, @crazyswissie, and @lanceulanoff

Andrew Davis / Bloomberg:

Report: Facebook closed Irish subsidiary and moved billions in profits back to US following IRS suit; Irish subsidiary paid $101M in tax on $15B profit in 2018

Source: The Times. More: The Guardian and Engadget

Tweets: @reflectingman, @yesecondpost, @theactualcathal, @revolution_irl, @astraea1974, @_jack_poulson, @sub8u, @blmohr, @cnada, and @business