Techmeme
December 22, 2020, 4:30 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Draft lawsuit filed by ten US states last week says Facebook and Google agreed to “cooperate and assist one another” against possible antitrust action  —  Draft lawsuit quotes Facebook's Sandberg saying Google pact was a ‘big deal strategically’
Washington Post:
Sources: in the early stages of US antitrust investigations, Facebook offered to help others build a social networking competitor using its network and code  —  The company ramped up its lobbying, hired high-powered lawyers and launched a slew of internal initiatives as the government prepared to sue …
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune:
Ripple CEO says the SEC will file a suit over the alleged sale of unlicensed securities and calls it a parting shot by the Trump administration  —  Ripple, one of the most important companies in the cryptocurrency industry, said Monday evening that the Securities and Exchange Commission …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Three VPNs popular with criminals and active for over a decade have had their servers and web domains seized by law enforcement from US, Germany, France, others  —  The three VPN services provided safe haven for cybercriminals to carry out ransomware attacks, web skimming operations, spearphishing, and account takeovers.
Alex Gallagher / NME:
The COVID-19 relief bill passed by Congress includes the Felony Streaming Bill, which makes illegal streaming for profit a felony, with up to 10 years jail time  —  Targeting illegal for-profit streaming providers, not individual users  —  The US Congress has passed a COVID-19 stimulus bill …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Dana Mattioli / Wall Street Journal:
Investigation details Amazon's campaigns over the years to steamroll rivals and partners, including those on its marketplace, sometimes with Bezos' involvement  —  CEO Jeff Bezos still runs the e-commerce giant with the drive of a startup trying to survive, and that strand of its corporate DNA is becoming a liability
Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
Analysis: of the 60 biggest brands that paused Facebook ads in 2020, only ~10 continue to do so, and some of those have kept spending using other Facebook tools  —  This past summer, dozens of major brands pulled their ad dollars from Facebook in a protest of the company's handling of the hate speech and disinformation.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Facebook's small advertisers say that the company's inflexible account blocking tools and lack of customer assistance is hurting their businesses  —  - Marketers find ads still running after losing account access  — Social network's automated tools ‘not perfect,’ company says
Jennifer Epstein / Bloomberg:
Biden transition team says Twitter told it current followers of @POTUS won't carry over to Biden, whose @POTUS account will start at zero, a reversal from 2017  —  - Followers were transfered to Trump from Obama in 2017  — First lady, press secretary accounts also reset to zero
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The US government's proposal for crypto exchanges to collect identity data from users with self-hosted crypto wallets will expand the US' financial surveillance  —  One of the most important aspects of cryptocurrencies from a civil liberties perspective is that they can provide privacy protections for their users.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Group of 19 security firms and tech companies including Microsoft and McAfee form Ransomware Task Force to develop a standard framework to deal with ransomware  —  The newly-founded Ransomware Task Force will work to put together a standard framework for dealing with ransomware attacks.
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Amazon says it will delay a planned raise in merchant fees for storing and shipping items until June 2021 in the US, EU, and Japan  —  - Largest online retailer to hold fees steady in U.S., EU, Japan  — UPS, FedEx had already announced shipping price increases
Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:
SEC approves NYSE's plan to let companies raise capital and issue new shares via direct listings, potentially helping startups save on bank fees  —  Proposal lets companies raise capital through direct listings  —  The Securities and Exchange Commission will allow companies …
More: BloombergTweets: @skupor, @bgurley, @bgurley, @bgurley, and @bgurley
Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco, LinkedIn, GitHub, VMware, and the Internet Association file an amicus brief in support of WhatsApp in the WhatsApp v. NSO Group case  —  (Reuters) - Tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet , Cisco, and VMware on Monday joined Facebook's legal battle against hacking company NSO …
Simon Parkin / New Yorker:
Q&A with Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto on what excites him about his work, his strengths and weaknesses as a boss, avoiding abuse of power, ambitions, more  —  The legendary designer on rejecting violence in games, trying to be a good boss, and building Nintendo's Disneyland.
New York Times:

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Forms for successful Black Friday sales  —  Black Friday is a retail frenzy that can significantly impact your bottom line.  To make the most of this shopping bonanza, you need a strategy that not only attracts customers …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue 11/05 - Apple: Maybe Smartglasses Are The Way To Go
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:30 PM ET, December 22, 2020.

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

Earlier Picks

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Vikas SN / The Economic Times:
BBC:
Reuters:
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: