Tech Meme

Nicole Farley / Search Engine Land: Google plans to sunset Optimize and Optimize 360, which let marketers conduct A/B testing to improve their website or app user experience, on September 30, 2023  —  Any experiments and personalizations still active will end.  —  Google Optimize and Optimize 360 will no longer be available after September 30, 2023. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: The FTC fines HomeAdvisor up to $7.2M for using deceptive tactics to sell home improvement project leads, marking the agency’s first fine related to gig work  —  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has ordered home services marketplace HomeAdvisor up to $7.2 million for its use of deceptive … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Jennifer Elias / CNBC: At a town hall, Sundar Pichai asked staff to stay motivated as Google faces competition in areas like AI and indicated there would be executive bonus cuts  —  – Google CEO Sundar Pichai and executive leaders addressed employee questions at a town hall meeting on Monday after last week’s job cuts. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Chinese gamers lose access to Blizzard’s games after its 14-year partnership with NetEase ended; servers hosting the games shut down in China on January 23  —  Millions of Chinese gamers have lost access to World of Warcraft after a furious dispute between US title owner Activision Blizzard Inc … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk: The FBI says North Korea-backed hacking groups Lazarus and APT38 are behind the June 2022 theft of ~$100M in ETH, USDT, and wBTC from Harmony’s Horizon bridge  —  Lazarus Group and APT38, both associated with North Korea, are responsible for the attack in June, the agency concluded. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: Sources: the DOJ is poised to sue Google this week over dominating the US digital ad market, the fifth major US case challenging its business practices  —  The US Justice Department is poised to sue Alphabet Inc.’s Google as soon as Tuesday regarding the search giant’s dominance … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Lauren Feiner / CNBC: Filings: Apple’s US lobbying spend grew 44% YoY to $9.4M in 2022; Amazon’s grew ~2% to $19.7M, Meta’s fell 4.6% to $19.2M; Google spent $10.9M, Microsoft $9.8M  —  – Apple grew its lobbying spend the most last year compared to its peers, according to public disclosures. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Kaya Yurieff / The Information: Internal messages: TikTok told some of its US employees they could lose their jobs unless they show they already moved to an address near their assigned offices  —  TikTok is cracking down on remote work, telling some U.S. workers they could lose their jobs unless they show they have already moved near their assigned offices. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Kevin McLaughlin / The Information: Source: CEO Satya Nadella voiced concerns for years that Microsoft was slow to commercialize its AI research; in 2022, its researchers said rivals seemed ahead  —  For more than a decade, Microsoft Research, the company’s in-house research group, has touted artificial intelligence breakthroughs … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Vitalik Buterin / Vitalik Buterin’s website: How a “stealth address system” using zero-knowledge proofs could improve Ethereum’s privacy vs. trying to hide or mix transfers using services like Tornado Cash  —  Special thanks to Ben DiFrancesco, Matt Solomon, Toni Wahrstätter and Antonio Sanso for feedback and review Lees verder op Tech Meme