Techmeme
June 23, 2021, 1:35 PM

Top News

Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal:
In a new report, Apple says letting iOS users sideload apps would undermine privacy protections, complicate parental controls, and potentially expose user data  —  Company says allowing users to download software onto their iPhones without using the App Store jeopardizes protections
Michael Grothaus / Fast Company:
Apple's head of user privacy says sideloading is actually “eliminating choice” and would negate technical and policy defenses  —  Recently there have been growing calls for Apple to allow third-party app stores for the iOS and iPadOS platforms, which would enable a process known as …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Morning Consult poll of 2,000 US voters: 53% at least somewhat support Congress' Big Tech antitrust bills; 44% rank tech regulation as their lowest priority  —  - A new poll commissioned by tech industry-funded group shows 53% of voters favor at least some tech regulation.
Politico:
Reuters:
DOJ says it has seized 36 Iranian media websites and sites for groups affiliated with Iran that are linked to Iranian disinformation for violating US sanctions  —  The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it seized 36 Iranian-linked websites, many of them associated with either disinformation activities …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
EA says it will buy Warner Bros. Games' Playdemic mobile games studio, known for one of the top mobile games “Golf Clash”, for $1.4B in cash  —  Founded in 2010, Playdemic is known for “Golf Clash,” which lets players compete with each other around the world in real time.
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
International coalition of consumer groups, digital and civil rights organizations, and data protection experts call for ban on “surveillance-based advertising”  —  An international coalition of consumer protection, digital and civil rights organizations and data protection experts …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Twitter opens applications to test Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows for a small number of users, who will keep 97% of revenue after the IAP cut if making <$50K  —  Users initially keep 97 percent of their revenue  —  Twitter is opening applications for a limited test of its Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces features.
Mark Nottingham / mnot's blog:
How recent actions against Big Tech in the US, UK, and EU could inadvertently lead to more fragmentation and ossification of the internet  —  A big change in how the Internet is defined - and who defines it - is underway.  —  For a while now, it's been apparent that Internet and Web standards have stagnated at the ‘top’ of the stack.
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
Tim Berners-Lee defends his decision to auction an NFT representing the web's source code, comparing it to the sale of an autographed book or a speaking tour  —  Creator of the world wide web says digital asset is ‘totally aligned with the values of the web’
Tracy Qu / South China Morning Post:
Kuaishou now has 1B monthly active users globally, joining rivals ByteDance and Tencent, including on its Kwai and Snack Video apps  —  China's No 2 short video-sharing app operator joins rival ByteDance and Tencent as internet platforms with 1 billion monthly active users Kuaishou's tally covers …
More: TechCrunch
Bloomberg:
Microsoft has become the second public US company to reach a $2T market value, after Apple did in August 2020 and two years after hitting its first $1T in value  —  - Shares of the software giant have gained 19% so far this year  — Only Apple and Saudi Aramco had hit $2 trillion in value
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Instagram says it will test mixing suggested posts throughout primary feeds, even above posts from people users follow, and adds new controls  —  A priority on algorithm-chosen content  —  Instagram says reception to its “suggested posts” feature has been so positive that it's launching a new test …
Cam Wilson / Crikey:
Australia's controversial Online Security Bill is about to become law, expanding the eSafety Commissioner's ability to censor the internet  —  The controversial Online Safety Bill will give broad censorship powers to the eSafety commissioner, and experts warn that it could harm those it purports to save.
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian:
Rights Group Global Witness study finds Facebook is promoting content that incites violence against Myanmar's coup protesters and amplifies junta misinformation  —  Posts ranging from wanted posters to death threats remain online for months, breaching platform's own standards
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Vercel, which develops the popular open-source Next.js React framework, raises $102M Series C led by Bedrock Capital at a $1.1B valuation  —  Vercel, the company behind the popular open-source Next.js React framework, today announced that it has raised a $102 million Series C funding round led by Bedrock Capital.
Margherita Beale / Forbes:
Habi, a Colombia-based residential real estate marketplace with automated pricing tech, raises $100M Series B led by SoftBank Latin America Fund  —  Habi, a real estate startup digitizing home buying and selling for Colombia's middle class, announced Wednesday that it has raised $100 million …
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
European Commission says it has opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google favors its own display ad tech over rivals  —  Brussels to examine whether US group broke rules by giving an advantage to its own services  —  The EU has announced a formal investigation …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researcher: counterfeit packages on the official Python repository, downloaded ~5,000 times, contained code that installed cryptomining software  —  Open source repositories can be vectors for badness, so look before you run.  —  Counterfeit packages downloaded roughly 5,000 times …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho SalesIQ turns 10: Transforming customer experiences since 2014  —  October marked a remarkable milestone for Zoho SalesIQ—our 10th anniversary.  What began in 2014 as a simple live chat tool has evolved …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 11/01 - ChatGPT Search
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:35 PM ET, June 23, 2021.

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.

More News

Earlier Picks

Tiernan Ray / ZDNet:
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: