Techmeme
June 23, 2021, 10:50 AM

Top News

Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
Apple says allowing users to download apps directly onto their iPhones without having to use the App Store would harm customers by damaging privacy and security  —  Company says allowing users to download software onto their iPhones without using the App Store jeopardizes protections
Michael Grothaus / Fast Company:
Apple's head of user privacy says sideloading is actually “eliminating choice” and would negate technical and policy defenses  —  Recently there have been growing calls for Apple to allow third-party app stores for the iOS and iPadOS platforms, which would enable a process known as …
Politico:
Reuters:
DOJ says it has seized 36 Iranian media websites and sites for groups affiliated with Iran that are linked to Iranian disinformation for violating US sanctions  —  The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it seized 36 Iranian-linked websites, many of them associated with either disinformation activities …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Twitter opens applications to test Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows for a small number of users, who will keep 97% of revenue after the IAP cut if making <$50K  —  Users initially keep 97 percent of their revenue  —  Twitter is opening applications for a limited test of its Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces features.
Mark Nottingham / mnot's blog:
How recent actions against Big Tech in the US, UK, and EU could inadvertently lead to more fragmentation and ossification of the internet  —  A big change in how the Internet is defined - and who defines it - is underway.  —  For a while now, it's been apparent that Internet and Web standards have stagnated at the ‘top’ of the stack.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
International coalition of consumer groups, digital and civil rights organizations, and data protection experts call for ban on “surveillance-based advertising”  —  An international coalition of consumer protection, digital and civil rights organizations and data protection experts …
Bloomberg:
Microsoft has become the second public US company to reach a $2T market value, after Apple did in August 2020 and two years after hitting its first $1T in value  —  - Shares of the software giant have gained 19% so far this year  — Only Apple and Saudi Aramco had hit $2 trillion in value
Tracy Qu / South China Morning Post:
Kuaishou now has 1B monthly active users globally, joining rivals ByteDance and Tencent, including on its Kwai and Snack Video apps  —  China's No 2 short video-sharing app operator joins rival ByteDance and Tencent as internet platforms with 1 billion monthly active users Kuaishou's tally covers …
More: TechCrunch
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Vercel, which develops the popular open-source Next.js React framework, raises $102M Series C led by Bedrock Capital at a $1.1B valuation  —  Vercel, the company behind the popular open-source Next.js React framework, today announced that it has raised a $102 million Series C funding round led by Bedrock Capital.
Helene Braun / CoinDesk:
Paris-based Kaiko, which provides cryptocurrency market data and research, raises $24M Series A to expand analysis of the Asian market  —  The Paris-based institutional data firm plans to open an Asian office in either Hong Kong or Singapore later this year.
More: FinSMEs and The Block
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Facebook says it is working on visual search for Instagram shopping to help users find info on products in images, and Shops is coming to WhatsApp, Marketplace  —  Facebook is working on visual search technology for Instagram as it doubles down on shopping features throughout its platform.
Cam Wilson / Crikey:
Australia's controversial Online Security Bill is about to become law, expanding the eSafety Commissioner's ability to censor the internet  —  The controversial Online Safety Bill will give broad censorship powers to the eSafety commissioner, and experts warn that it could harm those it purports to save.
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian:
Rights Group Global Witness study finds Facebook is promoting content that incites violence against Myanmar's coup protesters and amplifies junta misinformation  —  Posts ranging from wanted posters to death threats remain online for months, breaching platform's own standards
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Ant Group is in talks with Chinese state-owned companies to create a credit scoring company that will put Ant's vast data under Chinese control  —  The fintech giant is in discussions to start a new credit-scoring business with Chinese state-owned enterprises
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
European Commission says it has opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google favors its own display ad tech over rivals  —  Brussels to examine whether US group broke rules by giving an advantage to its own services  —  The EU has announced a formal investigation …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Privacy browser Brave launches a non-tracking search engine in beta, at search.brave.com, to offer an “all in one” alternative to Google Search and Chrome  —  Pro-privacy browser Brave, which has been testing its own brand search engine for several months — operating a waitlist where brave …

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