Techmeme
December 6, 2021, 3:45 PM

Top News

The Markup:
Sources: Life360, a family safety app with 33M users, has sold users' precise location since 2016 and is one of the location data broker industry's top sources  —  The app is a major source of raw location data for a multibillion-dollar industry that buys, packages, and sells people's movements
Jon Porter / The Verge:
WhatsApp now lets users set all one-to-one chats to disappear by default after 24 hours, seven days, or 90 days  —  Its disappearing messages feature is getting an upgrade  —  WhatsApp is adding new functionality to its disappearing messages feature, which lets users set messages in a chat …
Ben Smith / New York Times:
A document from TikTok's engineering team in Beijing details the app's addictive algorithm, which pursues DAUs by optimizing for “retention” and “time spent”  —  It's the most successful video app in the world.  Our columnist has obtained an internal company document …
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all have programs that collect additional customer data, like app usage, location, and web history, and they are generally opt-out  —  Verizon says it's to better “understand your interests”  —  The My Verizon app might be collecting information about your browsing history …
Bloomberg:
Investigation: Swiss company Mitto, which offers text message services to companies in 100+ countries, helped governments surveil phones; Mitto denies the claim  —  Mitto AG's network used to track people via mobile phones, former employees say.  —  The co-founder of a company that has been trusted …
Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:
US investigators traced ransomware payments back to companies in the Moscow skyscraper Federation Tower East, suggesting Russia tolerates ransomware operators  —  Cybersecurity experts tracing money paid by American businesses to Russian ransomware gangs found it led to one of Moscow's most prestigious addresses.
Julian E. Barnes / New York Times:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Many customers complain that T-Mobile and Verizon are denying promised rebates for promoted Apple products  —  Some customers are finding that wireless carriers are denying rebates used to promote Apple Inc.'s newest iPhones, iPads and watches.  Plus, omicron's impact on Apple and the company loses yet another car executive.
Financial Times:
Researchers detail Meta's roadblocks, including pre-publication review and restrictive contracts, and how it stifles what might cast it in a negative light  —  Last March, Orestis Papakyriakopoulos, a researcher at Princeton University, applied to use a special data access tool that allows academics to do research on Facebook.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Amazon's extensive supply chain investments, mostly focused on domestic US logistics, make it increasingly attractive to third-party merchants and customers  —  It seems like a Christmas miracle.  From CNBC: … The intended takeaway of this article — which originated as a digital special report …
Reuters:
Alibaba appoints a new CFO and will reorganize its e-commerce businesses under two new divisions, one domestic and one international  —  Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (9988.HK) said Toby Xu, will succeed Maggie Wu as the company's chief financial officer from April, a move it described as part of the company's leadership succession plan.
Benedict Evans:
Overview of macro tech trends, with a focus on Web3, the metaverse, and cloud adoption, which is just beginning as on-prem IT spend still dwarfs cloud spend  —  The most exciting themes in technology today are transformative visions for 2025 or 2030: crypto, web3, VR, metaverse... and then everything else.
Alistair Gray / Financial Times:
GroupM: global ad revenue will reach $763B in 2021, up 18.7% from 2019; Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon control 80-90% of the digital ad market outside of China  —  Alphabet, Meta and Amazon have doubled their share of ad revenues in past 5 years, industry estimates

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
See how your customer experience priorities compare  —  TELUS Digital surveyed leaders about the tech they're investing in, the KPIs they're tracking and their plans for outsourcing.  Get the results.  No form fill required!
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Zoho Sign at Kenya's Digital Trust Forum 2025 organized by Evrotrust and Geda  —  Kenyan businesses and government services are adapting to digital alternatives to explore opportunities in the nation's newly launched ten-year Digital Master Plan.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Logan Bartlett Show:
Zach Weinberg (Co-Founder & CEO, Curie.Bio) on The Tariff Trap, Self-Inflicted Recession Risk, and Open AI's Fundraise
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Techmeme Ride Home:
The Nintendo Switch 2
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Trump vs The Media, Round 2, with Sara Fischer
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Spotlight On:
Graphite's Merrill Lutsky on Revolutionizing Code Review for the AI Era
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Invest Like the Best:
Darren Farber - The Business of Defense
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
CEO Matt Bromberg on ending Unity's 'war' against its customers
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:45 PM ET, December 6, 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

The Guardian:

Earlier Picks

Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
David Streitfeld / New York Times:
RT:
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Tim Copeland / The Block: