Techmeme
September 15, 2023, 12:30 PM

Top News

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Ireland's DPC fines TikTok €345M after finding it in breach of GDPR in relation to how it handles children's data and gives the company three months to comply  —  It's been a long time coming but TikTok has finally been found in breach of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X partners with Au10tix to offer paid users government ID-based account verification, which is not available in the EU or the UK, likely due to strict data laws  —  X, formerly Twitter, has launched government ID-based account verification for paid users to prevent impersonation and give them benefits such as “prioritized support.”
Victor Tangermann / Futurism:
Microsoft's Start news website published a garbled, seemingly AI-generated obit for former NBA player Brandon Hunter, headlined, “Brandon Hunter useless at 42”  —  Former NBA player Brandon Hunter passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 42 this week, a tragedy that rattled fans …
Financial Times:
Sources: Meta is exploring whether to show ads in WhatsApp and charge a subscription fee to use the app without ads; WhatsApp denies working on such a feature  —  Talks are at an early stage, sources say, as Facebook parent looks for new ways to increase revenue
Elizabeth Pineau / Reuters:
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Google agrees to pay California $93M to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of tracking users for commercial gain even after they turned off Location History  —  Google will pay California $93 million to resolve a lawsuit accusing the search engine company of misleading consumers about its location tracking practices.
Victoria Song / The Verge:
Google confirms the company does not offer repair options for cracked Pixel Watch screens; Google's hardware warranty policy does not cover accidental damage  —  If you crack the screen on the Pixel Watch, getting it officially repaired by Google isn't in the cards.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Salesforce plans to hire 3,300 people across sales, engineering, and its data cloud product, after cutting 10% of its workforce, or ~8,000 jobs, in January 2023  —  - New hires will be split among sales, engineering, data cloud  — Many hires will be boomerang employees, CEO Benioff says
Jon Victor / The Information:
Sources: Google gave a small group of companies access to an early version of its Gemini AI model, suggesting the company is close to launching the GPT-4 rival  —  Google has given a small group of companies access to an early version of its highly anticipated conversational artificial intelligence software …
Bloomberg:
Mehul Srivastava / Financial Times:
MGM was likely hacked by Scattered Spider, an English-speaking group that previously used help desk calls to get passwords and planned to hack the slot machines  —  Person claiming to represent cybercriminals explains techniques used to evade detection by casino resort company
Wall Street Journal:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Sources: ByteDance and the US restart their negotiations over TikTok's operations after six months, as calls to ban the app fade ahead of the 2024 US election  —  Calls to ban the wildly popular app have faded ahead of the 2024 election  —  TikTok's China-based parent company and the U.S. government …
More: 9to5Mac and BBC
Neil Long / Mobilegamer.biz:
Sources: Unity offered a 100% Runtime Fee waiver to studios using its LevelPlay mediation platform and 80% to 100% waivers to developers switching from AppLovin  —  Unity is quietly offering developers a Runtime Fee waiver if they switch to its LevelPlay mediation platform, we're told.
Kat Bailey / IGN:

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Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Steven Rosenbush / Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Nicole Nguyen / Wall Street Journal:
Monica Chin / The Verge: