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April 18, 2025, 3:20 AM
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Top News

David McCabe / New York Times:
A US judge says Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in some online advertising tech, the second time in a year a court found Google acted illegally  —  The ruling was the second time in a year that a federal court had found that Google had acted illegally to maintain its dominance.
More: United States District Court E.D. Va., Reuters, MacRumors, Washington Post, TechCrunch, Wired, AppleInsider, Reuters, CNN, The Overspill, JURIST, Reuters, Associated Press, BIG by Matt Stoller, Digiday, Wall Street Journal, Vox, MediaPost, Computerworld, Axios, NZ Herald, KQED, Tubefilter, Skift, TWiT.tv, OSnews, State of California, Common Dreams, SammyGuru, Search Engine Roundtable, ABA Journal, PYMNTS.com, The Western Journal, Silicon UK, PhoneArena, SFist, Gizmodo, Los Angeles Times, 9to5Google, Deadline, The Hill, New York Post, Variety, Engadget, and The Information
Bluesky: @klobuchar.senate.gov, @caseynewton, @robpegoraro.com, @robin.berjon.com, and @reckless.  Threads: @wongmjane
X: @jason_kint, @_annalanglois, @aripap, @agrobbonta, @adamkovac, @aagslater, @capitolkvd, @timsweeneyepic, @lutherlowe, @jason_kint, @tylerbishop, @catturd2, @mikeisaac, @agtennessee, @khushitavasant, @lukewgoldstein, @sayreevan, @adamkovac, @basedmikelee, @jkbustertruster, @aagslater, @balancecrafting, @benbrodydc, @repjerrynadler, @jasonmiyaresva, @adamkovac, @rachelbovard, @stockmarketnerd, @zamaan_qureshi, @future_of_music, @matthewstoller, @linamkhan, @sarafischer, @aagslater, @matthewstoller, @rbreich, @lukewgoldstein, @aagslater, @hadas_gold, @_annalanglois, @loudmouthjulia, @jkbustertruster, @moreperfectus, @leehepner, @amyklobuchar, @jeffjacksonnc, @repfitzgerald, @senamyklobuchar, @khushitavasant, @dohamekki, @edwhelaneppc, @matthewstoller, @choprausa, @aripap, @meadorftc, @khushitavasant, @moreperfectus, @benremaly, @adamkovac, @stockmarketnerd, @matthewstoller, @loudmouthjulia, @benremaly, @ggreenwald, @newyorkstateag, @agowa, @senmikelee, @mrddmia, @benremaly, @adamkovac, @timsweeneyepic, @lewis_crofts, @econliberties, @mrddmia, @jason_kint, @chronotope, @allthecitizens, @aagslater, @jimcramer, and @wadhwa
LinkedIn: Erin Dougherty, Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, and Jonathan Kanter
Forums: Hacker News, r/privacy, r/redditstock, r/Economics, r/google, r/degoogle, r/programmatic, r/news, r/technology, Beehaw, and Slashdot
See also Mediagazer
Bloomberg:
In her ruling, Judge Brinkema says Google did not meet the monopoly definition for tools used to buy display ads, but did for ad exchanges and website ad tools  —  Google illegally monopolized some online advertising technology markets, according to a federal judge, whose ruling marked …
Axios:
The DOJ and 17 US states that brought the antitrust case seek to force Google to sell off its “network” ad business, which is ~12% of Alphabet's total revenue  —  Google's dominance of the online advertising and ad-tech markets violates U.S. antitrust laws, a federal court ruled Thursday …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix reports Q1 revenue up 12.5% YoY to $10.54B, vs. $10.51B est., net income of $2.89B, and stops reporting subscriber numbers on a quarterly basis  —  Netflix is no longer reporting number of subscribers on a quarterly basis.  But it's still motoring on a hot growth engine …
Makena Kelly / Wired:
Sources: the CFPB terminated more than 1,400 workers, leaving about 200 employees and effectively gutting the agency that Elon Musk previously said to “delete”  —  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau terminated the positions of 1,400 of the agency's 1,700 employees …
Ryan Whitwam / Ars Technica:
Google rolls out Gemini 2.5 Flash in preview, with support for Canvas for working on text or code; developers can disable thinking or set a token limit for it  —  Google's Gemini AI may have had a slow start, but it has been anything but in 2025.  Barely a week goes by that another model …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
US consumers are flocking to Chinese shopping apps DHgate and Taobao, which let them buy direct from manufacturers, as Shein and Temu prices rise amid tariffs  —  The Chinese e-commerce marketplace app DHgate, which is now the No. 2 free iPhone app in the U.S., isn't the only one that's oddly benefiting …
Washington Post:
Sources: Tim Cook spoke to the US Commerce Secretary last week about how tariffs could affect iPhone prices before Trump exempted products from Apple and others  —  Administration officials insist that no companies received special exemptions.  Trump said he “helped Tim Cook recently.”
Justin Ling / Wired:
New Jersey's AG sues Discord, alleging the platform's features to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content are inadequate  —  The New Jersey attorney general claims Discord's features to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content are inadequate.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Google is offering its Google One AI Premium plan for free to US college students until spring 2026; students have until June 30, 2025, to sign up  —  That's more than a year of free access to Gemini tools.  —  Google is the latest AI service provider to court users in higher education.
Steve Dickson / Bloomberg:
Global Payments agrees to acquire Worldpay from FIS and PE firm GTCR for $24.3B and to sell Issuer Solutions to FIS for $13.5B in deals set to close in H1 2026
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
ChatGPT users are figuring out the location of photos using o3's image-analyzing capabilities paired with its web search functionality, raising privacy concerns  —  There's a somewhat concerning new trend going viral: people are using ChatGPT to figure out the location shown in pictures.
Dan Shipper / Every:
OpenAI o3 review: “deep research-lite”, giving thorough answers quickly, free from some old ChatGPT limitations, and powerful thanks to ChatGPT integration

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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:20 AM ET, April 18, 2025.

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.

From Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:
PBS and a public TV affiliate in Minnesota sue the Trump administration, saying his executive order to cut federal funding violated PBS' First Amendment rights

Max Tani / Semafor:
The California State Senate opens an inquiry into whether Paramount's reported $15M proposed settlement with Trump violated bribery and unfair competition laws

Chris Willman / Variety:
Taylor Swift acquires the rights to her first six albums from Shamrock Capital; sources say the deal was in the mid-$300M range

More News

The Information:
Sources: Meta asked Microsoft, Amazon, and others over the past year to fund Llama training costs in exchange for incentives, as part of a “Llama Consortium”
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple Intelligence features, such as Writing Tools, are no longer available in Meta's iOS apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads
Kyle Barr / Gizmodo:
Framework Laptop 13 review: it's modular and customizable, has a great keyboard and improved thermals, but it's pricey and the screen's brightness can be better

Earlier Picks

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
LMArena says it's starting a company, whose corporate name will be Arena Intelligence, with plans to raise money, and releases a new beta version of its website
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Instagram launches Blend, an invite-only, personalized Reels feed for users and their friends in a group chat with new content every day
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
The Wikimedia Foundation partners with Kaggle to release a dataset of “structured Wikipedia content in English and French” optimized for AI model training
Financial Times:
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived in China on April 16 and visited Beijing on April 17, a source says to meet officials to discuss Trump's new chip export rules
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