Techmeme
July 28, 2020, 2:10 PM

Top News

Sam Shead / CNBC:
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter work to pull versions of a video touting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 cure, after it was shared by Trump and his allies  —  - A Breitbart video containing dangerous coronavirus misinformation went viral on Facebook before it was removed.
Andrew Griffin / The Independent:
Twitter temporarily locks Donald Trump Jr's account for posting a “misleading and potentially harmful” video touting hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 cure  —  President posts same tweet, and is hit by slightly different sanctions … Donald Trump Jr has been suspended by Twitter for posting …
New York Times:
CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are preparing to argue that their companies do not stifle competition at a congressional hearing on Wednesday  —  The tech C.E.O.s will appear together at a congressional hearing on Wednesday to argue that their companies do not stifle competition.
Kyle Daly / Axios:
Combined market cap of Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon is ~$5T, their combined 2019 revenue was ~$773B, and they have a combined cash reserve of ~$420B  —  The four Big Tech CEOs who will testify before Congress Wednesday command global empires with power and wealth that make them more like countries than companies.
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
Bloomberg Law:
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
New York Times:
Sources: after Airbnb and ClassPass began selling virtual classes, Apple wanted to collect its 30% commission on the sales, up from no fee previously  —  After Airbnb and ClassPass began selling virtual classes because of the pandemic, Apple tried to collect its commission on the sales.
The Markup:
Study of 15K+ recent popular queries finds Google devoted 41% of the first page of search results on mobile devices to its own properties and “direct answers”  —  The search engine dedicated almost half of the first page of results in our test to its own products, which dominated the coveted top of the page
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Spotify debuts a Group Session feature in beta, letting up to five premium users simultaneously listen to the same content remotely  —  Simultaneously stream music or podcasts  —  Spotify is now allowing its paying users to listen to music and podcasts with friends and family at the same time …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
In a reversal, CES says its event planned for January 2021 will be going all-digital, using a virtual meeting format for vendors, attendees, and the press  —  CES 2021 will take place in January as an all-digital event since the organizers feel it's the only way they can protect attendees during the pandemic.
BBC:
Google announces plans to build a new undersea network cable connecting the US, UK, and Spain, expected to be completed by 2022  —  Google has announced plans to build a new undersea network cable connecting the US, UK and Spain.  —  The tech giant says it is incorporating new technology into the cable …
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Revel suspends its electric moped service in NYC after two people were killed in recent weeks; at least one was not wearing a helmet during the crash  —  Two people were killed and one was critically injured while riding the shared electric mopeds  —  Revel is suspending its service …
Jeffrey Dastin / Reuters:
Over about 8 years, Rite Aid quietly added facial recognition systems in 200 US stores, largely in low income areas, claiming it was meant to deter theft  —  In the hearts of New York and metro Los Angeles, Rite Aid installed facial recognition technology in largely lower-income, non-white neighborhoods, Reuters found.
More: The Verge
Bloomberg:
After suing the EU on July 15, Facebook won a temporary halt to a demand for documents by EU antitrust investigators  —  - EU tribunal suspends EU Commission's information requests  — Facebook is suing EU over ‘irrelevant’ data demands in probes  —  Facebook Inc. won a temporary halt …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Gaming platform Roblox says it has 150M+ MAUs, up from 115M in February, and its developer community is on pace to earn $250M+ in 2020, up from $110M in 2019  —  Gaming platform Roblox, which has seen a surge of use due to the coronavirus pandemic, now has over 150 million monthly active users …
More: VentureBeatTweets: @shaig
Ed Caesar / New Yorker:
The story of CyberBunker, a hosting provider that once hosted The Pirate Bay and a number of dark web sites, whose German facility was raided by police in 2019  —  An eccentric Dutchman began living in a giant underground facility built by the German military—and ran a server farm beloved by cybercriminals.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Chorus.ai, which develops AI-based software to analyze sales calls, raises $45M Series C led by Georgian Partners, bringing its total raised to $85.2M  —  Chorus.ai, a startup that leverages AI to analyze sales calls, this week raised $45 million.  CEO and cofounder Jim Benton says the proceeds …

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