Techmeme
March 11, 2024, 8:15 PM

Top News

Emma Roth / The Verge:
Airbnb will no longer let hosts use indoor security cameras, staring April 30, citing renters' privacy; previously, cameras in common areas had been allowed  —  Airbnb will no longer allow hosts to use indoor security cameras, regardless of where they're placed or what they're used for.
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
EU privacy watchdog EDPS says the European Commission using Microsoft 365 breached privacy rules and the EU didn't implement adequate data transfer safeguards  —  The European Commission's use of Microsoft (MSFT.O) software breached EU privacy rules and the bloc's executive also failed …
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Filing: Reddit aims to raise up to $748M in its IPO, selling ~22M shares at $31 to $34 each, for a ~$6.5B valuation; Reddit set aside 1.76M shares for its users  —  - Reddit aims to raise up to $748 million as part of its upcoming IPO, according to a corporate filing on Monday.
Fortune:
Sources: a16z Crypto made a secret $100M investment in Kickstarter in 2021 that let staff and investors cash out and led to its later-abandoned blockchain pivot  —  In early December 2021, employees at the crowdfunding startup Kickstarter got news of a windfall: An investor group wanted to buy some of their shares.
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Authors Brian Keene, Abdi Nazemian, and Stewart O'Nan sue Nvidia over allegedly using their work to train NeMo, saying the company “admitted” to using the books  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O), whose chips power artificial intelligence, has been sued by three authors who said it used …
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
GM, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, and others are collecting driving data from internet-connected vehicles and sharing it with insurance companies without clear consent  —  LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip G.M. drivers had taken in their cars …
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Pavel Durov says Telegram has 900M users, aims “to become profitable next year, if not this year”, was “offered $30B+ valuations” by VCs, and is weighing an IPO  —  In rare interview, Pavel Durov says secretive messaging app is making ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ from ads business
Alexandra Sternlicht / Fortune:
TikTok uses a non-disparagement clause in RSU contracts, perhaps to silence staff, an unusual practice; one ex-staffer claims a share buyback offer was withheld  —  Current and former TikTok employees who criticize the company risk losing any stock they own—in some cases worth millions of dollars …
Forbes:
A profile of Ryan Breslow, the founder of Bolt, whose $355M Series E in 2022 set off 18 months of acrimonious lawsuits and a showdown with early backer Activant  —  The Silicon Valley wunderkind rode his fintech unicorn Bolt to the bank.  Then came the lawsuits and money squabbles …
Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:
Sources: Apple is testing an AI-powered ad tool that automatically decides where to place ads within the App Store, similar to Google's Performance Max ad tool  —  - Apple is testing a new AI-powered tool for optimizing App Store ad campaigns.  — The tool mimics Google's Performance Max …
Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Covariant, an AI-powered robot maker, debuts RFM-1, an AI model the company says can process physics, may limit the need for bespoke robotics programming, more  —  The UC Berkeley spinout says its new AI platform can help robots think more like people  —  Covariant this week announced …

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