Techmeme
July 20, 2021, 11:45 AM

Top News

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is delaying return to office deadline by at least a month to October amid rising COVID cases, will give employees a month's notice before return  —  - The iPhone maker is now eyeing an October return for workers  — Covid-19 variants continue to spread across many countries
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Amnesty International researchers published a toolkit to help anyone scan their iPhone and Android devices for evidence of compromise by NSO's Pegasus spyware  —  Over the weekend, an international consortium of news outlets reported that several authoritarian governments — including Mexico …
The Guardian:
Nina Lakhani / The Guardian:
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
DOJ unseals charges against four Chinese nationals, believed to be part of China-backed APT 40 hacking group; charging docs focus on activity from 2011 to 2018  —  The US Department of Justice has indicted four Chinese nationals today for hacking companies, government agencies …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Sheera Frenkel / New York Times:
Sources: a group of Facebook data scientists asked for resources to measure COVID misinfo on Facebook at the start of the pandemic, but execs denied the request  —  The company doesn't know some specifics about how falsehoods about Covid-19 and vaccines for the virus spread on its social network.
Andrew Restuccia / Wall Street Journal:
Forbes:
BlockFi CEO confirms it received an order from the New Jersey Bureau of Securities to stop accepting new Interest Accounts; existing users won't be impacted  —  I write about how digital assets are going to change the world  —  According to a draft press release from the New Jersey Office …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
YouTube acquires India-based social commerce startup Simsim, sources say for over $70M; Simsim raised $17M to date and was last valued at $50.1M  —  YouTube has acquired social commerce startup Simsim, the Google-owned firm said on Tuesday.  Neither of the firms disclosed the terms of the deal …
noyb.eu:
Austria's Supreme Court asks CJEU if Facebook “undermines” GDPR by treating a contract as consent to deliver targeted ads, following a request from Max Schrems  —  BREAKING: Austrian Supreme Court asks CJEU if Facebook “undermines” the GDPR by confusing ‘consent’ with an alleged ‘contract’.
GOV.UK:
UK proposes new pro-competition rules for digital economy, including allowing its Digital Markets Unit to suspend, block, and reverse decisions by tech giants  —  Digital firms with deep-rooted market power to be subject to mandatory code to drive up competition
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
China calls out 145 apps, including those from Amazon and ByteDance, alleging that they illegally collected user info, and gives them until July 26 to stop  —  The 145 named apps have until July 26 to take corrective measures or face punishment, the Ministry of Information Technology (MIIT) …
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Mural, which offers a whiteboard-like digital environment for users to collaborate, raises $50M Series C, valuing it at $2B+, says it's tripled ARR in last year  —  This morning Mural, a startup that builds digital collaboration software with a focus on visual presentation …
More: FinSMEs
Jordyn Holman / Bloomberg:
Fabric, which helps companies build their own e-commerce sites, raises $100M, source says at a valuation of $850M  —  - Funding gives the platform developer a value of $850 million  —  Fabric, a startup specializing in e-commerce platform development, raised $100 million in new funding …
More: GeekWire.  Thanks:@dstickler_01
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Path Robotics, which is developing robotic welding tech driven by computer vision and AI, raises $100M Series C led by Tiger Global, after May's $56M Series B  —  In May, Path Robotics announced a $56 million Series B. It was a sizable raise, as far as robotics rounds go.
Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Dish Network signs a deal to pay AT&T at least $5B over the next 10 years to use AT&T's 4G and 5G networks for its MVNOs  —  Dish Network has a new network operator partner for its MVNO brands: AT&T. The companies have signed a network services agreement (NSA) that will see Dish pay …

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Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Muvija M / Reuters: