Techmeme
September 2, 2021, 3:35 PM

Top News

Apple:
Apple will let developers of “reader” apps worldwide link to a website to set up or manage accounts early next year, closing an antitrust investigation by Japan  —  Apple will let developers of “reader” apps around the world link to an external website to set up or manage an account beginning early next year
More: Japan Fair Trade Commission, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Fortune, Reuters, 9to5Mac, Bloomberg, HotHardware.com News, Thurrott, New York Times, Gizmodo, The Economic Times, The Hill, TechSpot, PCMag, New York Post, CNBC, The Atlantic, The Mac Observer, Nieman Lab, world.hey.com, Washington Post, Michael Tsai, iPhone Hacks, XDA Developers, Redmond Pie, Barron's Online, KnowTechie, Protocol, Six Colors, CNN, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, iThinkDifferent, techadvisor.com, TechCircle, iPhone in Canada Blog, iDownloadBlog.com, BBC, Insider, Wccftech, MediaNama, Inc42 Media, PYMNTS.com, Gizchina, WRAL TechWire, Digital Trends, Macworld, Game Developer, Neowin, GamesIndustry.biz, RTÉ, AppleTrack, 500ish, and phonearena.com
Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
Sources: Apple is facing an antitrust investigation in India over forcing developers to use its in-app payment system  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is facing an antitrust challenge in India for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the apps market by forcing developers to use its proprietary …
The Verge:
Apple's updated rules allowing web signup links appear to apply only to apps that don't make much money for Apple, like Netflix and Spotify  —  It's for apps that don't make Apple any money anyways  —  While vocal app developers accused Apple last week of spinning a lawsuit settlement …
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Ireland's Data Protection Commission, on behalf of the EU, fines WhatsApp €225M for privacy violations, the second-largest under GDPR; WhatsApp will appeal  —  Regulators say chat-service unit failed to disclose fully how it collected and shared data about its users
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter is testing new privacy-focused tools, including archiving and hiding old tweets and editing follower lists, as part of a “social privacy” push  —  - Features give users more control over who sees which posts  — ‘Social privacy’ push targets reputation, identity management
Kait Sanchez / The Verge:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple begins prompting iOS 15 users for consent to enable Personalized Ads for their Apple ID, which was previously on by default and led to antitrust scrutiny  —  For iOS 15 users, Apple has begun prompting for their consent to enable Personalized Ads for their Apple ID …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple says Arizona and Georgia will be first to support adding IDs to Wallet in iOS 15, with six states, including Utah, Maryland, and Iowa, expected to follow  —  Apple's plan to digitize your wallet is slowly taking shape.  What started with boarding passes and venue tickets later became credit cards …
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
YouTube Music reached 50M paying subscribers in August, up from 30M paid music and premium subscribers that YouTube had reported in October 2020  —  Google-owned platforms have grown rapidly to become serious streaming competitor  —  YouTube's paid music streaming services have amassed 50m subscribers …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook says it helped airlift 175 Afghan citizens out of Afghanistan to Mexico, including journalists and some of its own employees  —  Facebook on Wednesday confirmed that it was part of an effort to fly 175 Afghan citizens out of Afghanistan to Mexico, including some of its own employees, according to a statement provided to Axios.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
General Motors says it is temporarily halting production at six of its North American factories due to the global chip shortage  —  ‘The situation remains complex and very fluid’  —  General Motors, parent company of Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick, said it was temporarily halting production …
More: PCMag and Reuters
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Roblox adds voice chat, initially in some games as “spatial audio” where players chat with others around them, and plans a Discord-like persistent voice chat  —  As one the frontrunners in the race to build the metaverse, Roblox is thinking ahead to what virtual worlds really need.
Ben Bowman / The Streamable:
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
NHTSA sends Tesla a letter asking for detailed information on how Autopilot detects and responds to parked emergency vehicles as part of a wider investigation  —  DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government's highway safety agency wants detailed information on how Tesla's Autopilot system detects …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Filing: SEC sues Satish Kumbhani, the founder of now-defunct BitConnect, and a promoter over alleged $2B crypto fraud scheme; Kumbhani's location is unknown  —  The top U.S. securities regulator on Wednesday sued the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange platform BitConnect …
Muyao Shen / CoinDesk:
A doge meme NFT that sold for $4M in June is now valued at $225M+ after it was fractionalized into nearly 17B tokens and sold in a one-day auction  —  Just three months after a non-fungible token (NFT) representing an image of the original Shiba Inu meme sold for about $4 million …
More: The Block
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Neobank Point raises $46.5M Series B led by Valar Ventures, bringing its total raised to $60M  —  Challenger bank Point has raised a $46.5 million Series B funding round.  The company offers an account associated with a debit card.  And the startup positions itself as a premium debit card company …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
UK's ICO now mandates websites and apps comply with its children's privacy design code, or face fines of up to £17.5M or 4% of annual worldwide turnover  —  In the UK, a 12-month grace period for compliance with a design code aimed at protecting children online expires today …

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Lauren Feiner / CNBC: