Techmeme
November 21, 2019, 5:00 AM

Top News

Scott Spencer / The Keyword:
Google announces new political ad rules, limits microtargeting to age, gender, and general location categories, will start enforcing them in UK within a week  —  We're proud that people around the world use Google to find relevant information about elections and that candidates use Google …
New York Times:
Google's limits on microtargeting of political ads for state and federal candidates shakes up ad plans and frustrates both Democrats and Republicans  —  The company said the ads would not be directed specifically to audiences based on their public voter records or political affiliations.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
PayPal to acquire Honey, a comparison shopping and rewards platform that has 17M MAUs, for ~$4B  —  PayPal announced today it has agreed to acquire Honey Science Corporation, the makers of a deal-finding browser add-on and mobile application, for $4 billion, mostly cash.
New York Times:
Google has hired IRI Consultants, an anti-union consulting company, signaling the feud between some activist employees and management has escalated  —  After nearly two years of unrest, the company appears to be cracking down on employee activism.  —  Google has hired an anti-union consulting firm …
NBC News:
President Donald Trump hosted an undisclosed dinner with Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel at the White House in October, Facebook confirmed on Wednesday  —  The meeting took place during Zuckerberg's most recent visit to Washington, where he testified before Congress about Facebook's new cryptocurrency Libra.
Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:
Uber plans to test letting riders and drivers in the US record audio of their trips “soon”, as a similar pilot program debuts next month in Brazil and Mexico  —  Uber plans to record audio during rides in the United States as part of a new security feature, its latest push …
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Apple says it has begun construction of its $1B Austin, Texas office campus, opening in 2022, as Trump tours the nearby Mac Pro production plant  —  Apple has announced that it has begun construction of its new Austin, Texas, campus, on the day that President Trump is due to tour the Mac Pro production line a short distance away.
Buster Hein / Cult of Mac:
Guilherme Rambo, who has published scoops about unreleased Apple products by examining beta software, says Apple locked his dev account with no stated reason  —  Guilherme Rambo, one of the top Apple secret-spillers, says Apple locked him out of his developer account, preventing …
Crystal Tse / Bloomberg:
Canaan, the China-based maker of Bitcoin mining machines, prices its US IPO at the bottom of the range at $9 per share, raising $90M  —  Canaan Inc., a maker of Bitcoin mining machines, raised $90 million after pricing its U.S. initial public offering at the bottom of its marketed range.
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Sonos has acquired voice assistant startup Snips for $37M, says it has sold 6.1M speakers in 2019, reports fiscal Q4 revenue of $294.2M, up 8% YoY  —  The company grew its 2019 revenue by 11%, but saw losses rise in Q4 due to increased R&D spending  —  Smart speaker maker Sonos is getting ready …
Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:
On-demand transcription service Rev faces backlash from its contractors after cutting their take to 30 cents for each dollar spent on some jobs, from 45 cents  —  Rev was just a small start-up offering online transcriptions.  Now it's the latest symbol of a gig-economy company whose workers are fed up.
Jake Bright / TechCrunch:
After converting to a for-profit status, Samasource raises $14.8M Series A for its AI data annotation service used by companies like Google and Walmart  —  AI training data provider Samasource has raised a $14.8 million Series A funding round led by Ridge Ventures.
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Apple tells Congress it is losing money on its device repair services, but critics say that Apple is being deliberately vague and may be misleading public  —  \u003Cp\u003E In July, Congress pressed Apple on its repair policies, which Motherboard and others have repeatedly shown to be anticompetitive …

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Earlier Picks

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