Techmeme
August 13, 2020, 9:30 PM

Top News

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Apple has removed Epic Games' Fortnite from the App Store after the developer implemented its own in-app payment system, bypassing Apple's standard 30% fee  —  Apple says Epic is violating its App Store guidelines by using its own payment system  —  Apple has removed Epic Games' battle royale Fortnite …
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Epic enables a direct payment option in Fortnite on iOS and Android alongside the existing method, to get around app store fees; buying direct is up to 20% off  —  Plus, V-bucks get permanently discounted  —  Today, Epic announced the Fortnite “mega drop,” a permanent discount on V-bucks …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google removes Fortnite from its Play Store, argues that although its Android ecosystem is open, Epic's decision violates store policies  —  You can still install it directly from Epic, however  —  Following its removal from the Apple App Store, Fortnite has also been kicked off of the Google Play Store for Android.
Austen Goslin / Polygon:
Accompanying its lawsuit, Epic released a 1984-inspired Fortnite short, parodying Apple's iconic Macintosh commercial  —  Epic is taking on the Apple App Store, with a video and a lawsuit  —  Epic premiered a new short video in Fortnite on Thursday called “Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite.”
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple will launch “Apple One” tiered subscription bundles, with Music, TV+, News+, and a new virtual fitness service, as early as October  —  Apple Inc. is readying a series of bundles that will let customers subscribe to several of the company's digital services …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
US says it has seized 300+ “cryptocurrency accounts”, worth around $2M, four websites, and four Facebook pages used by al-Qaeda, Hamas' military wing, and ISIS  —  The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the “largest ever seizure of terrorist organizations' cryptocurrency accounts” …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Lyft joins Uber in saying it will pull out of California if forced to re-classify drivers as employees  —  The companies say they can't afford to classify drivers as employees  —  Lyft said it would shut down operations in California if forced to classify drivers as employees …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Apple, Disney, and others participated in a White House call over the potential WeChat ban, arguing it could undermine their competitiveness in China  —  Companies including Apple, Disney and Walmart participate in call with White House over action against China's most important app
Bloomberg:
Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:
Researchers say a now-patched Alexa vulnerability could have been exploited to hand over users' personal data, voice recordings, banking data history, and more  —  Subdomains belonging to the service were found to be harboring CORS errors and vulnerable to XSS attacks.
Shannon Vavra / CyberScoop:
NSA and FBI say Russian state sponsored hacker group Fancy Bear is using a previously undisclosed Linux malware called Drovorub for cyber espionage operations  —  The National Security Agency and the FBI are jointly exposing malware that they say Russian military hackers use in cyber-espionage operations.
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Facebook officially launches a Voting Information Center on Facebook and Instagram, with state-by-state information on how to register and vote  —  Eager to avoid a repeat of its disastrous role as a super-spreader of misinformation during the 2016 election cycle, Facebook is getting its ducks in a row.
New York Times:
In discrimination case against Oracle, Labor Department lawyer says Secretary Eugene Scalia broke with normal practice in seeking a smaller settlement  —  A Labor Department lawyer asserts that she faced reprisal after saying Secretary Eugene Scalia was set to settle a suit for a sum she found too low.
Queenie Wong / CNET:
TikTok's US-based employees plan to file a lawsuit challenging Trump's executive order claiming the order would make it illegal for TikTok to pay them  —  Employees say the order would bar TikTok from paying them.  —  TikTok's US employees are planning to file a lawsuit challenging …
More: ProtocolThanks:@qwongsj

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