Techmeme
May 9, 2025, 10:45 PM

Top News

Ryan Autullo / Bloomberg Law:
Google agrees to pay Texas $1.4B to settle two lawsuits claiming it tracks Texans' personal location and maintains their facial recognition data without consent  —  Google will pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to resolve two privacy lawsuits claiming the tech giant tracks Texans' personal location …
Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:
Epic Games says it has submitted Fortnite to the US App Store for review  —  Update: Epic Games says it has submitted Fortnite to the U.S. App Store for review.  The ball is now in Apple's court to approve the app submission.  —  If Fortnite does return to the U.S. App Store this week, it won't be before Friday.
Tripp Mickle / New York Times:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Whoop sparks a backlash after asking its subscribers to pay to upgrade to 5.0, despite earlier promises of free hardware upgrades after six months of membership  —  Whoop promised members who'd been around at least six months would get free next-gen hardware.  Now, you'll have to pay.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Danai Nesta Kupemba / BBC:
President Claudia Sheinbaum says Mexico is suing Google for ignoring requests not to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps in the US  —  Mexico is suing Google for ignoring repeated requests not to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps for US users, President Claudia Sheinbaum says.
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Source: US DOL ended its probe into Scale AI's Fair Labor Standards Act compliance, after announcing a friendlier approach to classifying workers as contractors  —  The U.S. Department of Labor has dropped its investigation into Scale AI's compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act …
More: Reuters
Eli Tan / New York Times:
Pinterest agrees to pay $34.7M to settle a 2021 lawsuit from Christine Martinez, an early adviser who claimed she co-created the platform without compensation  —  Christine Martinez, who was a friend of two of Pinterest's three co-founders, sued the company in 2021 for breach of implied contract and other claims.
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Google agrees to pay $50M to settle a lawsuit accusing it of systemic racial bias against Black employees, covering 4,000+ employees in California and New York  —  Google agreed to pay $50 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the search engine company of systemic racial bias against Black employees.
Conor Hale / Fierce Biotech:
The US FDA plans to deploy AI tools to all centers by June 30, 2025 to speed up scientific reviews, after completing a pilot and naming its first AI chief  —  FDA Artificial Intelligence AI and Machine Learning Biotech  —  The FDA has appointed its first chief artificial intelligence officer …
MK Manoylov / The Block:
Coinbase Derivatives, the company's CFTC-regulated derivatives arm, launches 24/7 Bitcoin and Ethereum futures trading for retail and institutional users  —  - Coinbase Derivatives, the firm's CFTC-regulated derivatives arm, will provide round-the-clock futures contracts trading for retail and institutional users starting today.
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
Tech companies warn they may pull back from US investment pledges if Congress doesn't fully reinstate the R&D tax deduction pared back in Trump's 2017 tax bill  —  Major tech companies lobbying to salvage a tax deduction for research and development are warning they may pull …
Forums: Slashdot
Nancy Scola / Politico:
A profile of Gail Slater, the head of the DOJ's antitrust unit who has become the leader of the MAGA antitrust movement over Big Tech “censorship” concerns  —  Gail Slater, the head of the DOJ's antitrust division, will show how serious the right is about bringing big tech companies to heel.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Transform ML Experimentation with Tangle  —  Save months of compute time with Tangle, built by Shopify.  Try this open-source platform to simplify ML workflows, ensure reproducibility, and seamlessly share with collaborators.
Zoho:
Introducing Zoho Spend: A unified platform for the next gen finance teams.  —  Effective business spend management is a direct lever for profitability.  When organizations gain visibility into where money flows …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Invest Like the Best:
Gavin Baker - Nvidia v. Google, Scaling Laws, and the Economics of AI
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Pat Grady & Alfred Lin from Sequoia
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Device Wars Heat Up, RIP Metaverse?, Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
The Social Radars:
Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO of Boom Supersonic
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Grit:
The Pull to Build: Joubin Mirzadegan on Grit and Starting Roadrunner
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:45 PM ET, May 9, 2025.

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.

More News

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
David K. Li / NBC News:

Earlier Picks

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Steven T. Dennis / Bloomberg:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: