Techmeme
September 2, 2021, 4:15 PM

Top News

Apple:
Apple will let developers of “reader” apps worldwide link to a website to set up or manage accounts early next year, closing an antitrust investigation by Japan  —  Apple will let developers of “reader” apps around the world link to an external website to set up or manage an account beginning early next year
Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
Sources: Apple is facing an antitrust investigation in India over forcing developers to use its in-app payment system  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is facing an antitrust challenge in India for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the apps market by forcing developers to use its proprietary …
The Verge:
Apple's updated rules allowing web signup links appear to apply only to apps that don't make much money for Apple, like Netflix and Spotify  —  It's for apps that don't make Apple any money anyways  —  While vocal app developers accused Apple last week of spinning a lawsuit settlement …
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Ireland's Data Protection Commission, on behalf of the EU, fines WhatsApp €225M for privacy violations, the second-largest fine under GDPR; WhatsApp will appeal  —  Regulators say chat-service unit failed to disclose fully how it collected and shared data about its users
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Sources: Twitter is testing new privacy-focused tools, including archiving and hiding old tweets and editing follower lists, as part of a “social privacy” push  —  - Features give users more control over who sees which posts  — ‘Social privacy’ push targets reputation, identity management
Kait Sanchez / The Verge:
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple begins prompting iOS 15 users for consent to enable Personalized Ads for their Apple ID, which was previously on by default and led to antitrust scrutiny  —  For iOS 15 users, Apple has begun prompting for their consent to enable Personalized Ads for their Apple ID …
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
YouTube Music reached 50M paying subscribers in August, up from 30M paid music and premium subscribers that YouTube had reported in October 2020  —  Google-owned platforms have grown rapidly to become serious streaming competitor  —  YouTube's paid music streaming services have amassed 50m subscribers …
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Apple says Arizona and Georgia will be first to support adding IDs to Wallet in iOS 15, with six states, including Utah, Maryland, and Iowa, expected to follow  —  Apple's plan to digitize your wallet is slowly taking shape.  What started with boarding passes and venue tickets later became credit cards …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Roblox adds voice chat, initially in some games as “spatial audio” where players chat with others around them, and plans a Discord-like persistent voice chat  —  As one the frontrunners in the race to build the metaverse, Roblox is thinking ahead to what virtual worlds really need.
Andrew Thurman / CoinDesk:
Dom Hofmann's Loot, with NFTs of random lists of items ostensibly from a fantasy video game, had $46M in sales in just 5 days, attaining a market cap of $180M+  —  The latest non-fungible token (NFT) craze is among the simplest - and the strangest - yet: a randomly generated list …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook says it helped airlift 175 Afghan citizens out of Afghanistan to Mexico, including journalists and some of its own employees  —  Facebook on Wednesday confirmed that it was part of an effort to fly 175 Afghan citizens out of Afghanistan to Mexico, including some of its own employees, according to a statement provided to Axios.
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
General Motors says it is temporarily halting production at six of its North American factories due to the global chip shortage  —  ‘The situation remains complex and very fluid’  —  General Motors, parent company of Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick, said it was temporarily halting production …
More: PCMag and Engadget
Ben Bowman / The Streamable:
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
NHTSA sends Tesla a letter asking for detailed information on how Autopilot detects and responds to parked emergency vehicles as part of a wider investigation  —  DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government's highway safety agency wants detailed information on how Tesla's Autopilot system detects …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Filing: SEC sues Satish Kumbhani, the founder of now-defunct BitConnect, and a promoter over alleged $2B crypto fraud scheme; Kumbhani's location is unknown  —  The top U.S. securities regulator on Wednesday sued the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange platform BitConnect …

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Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
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Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
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