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

Reuters: Crypto prices are recovering in January so far: bitcoin is up 26%, including 22% in the past week, to over $20,000, ether is up 29%, and meme coins are rising  —  Bitcoin is on the charge in 2023, dragging the crypto market off the floor and electrifying bonk, a new meme coin. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Patrick McGee / Financial Times: How Apple built a supply chain in China over two decades, spending billions and embedding staff in factories, creating a dependence before US tensions escalated  —  The company spent two decades and billions of dollars building a supply chain of unprecedented sophistication.  Now, a reckoning is coming Lees verder op Tech Meme

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: CryptoSlam and Forkast.News plan to merge and become Forkast Labs, offering news and data for crypto investors; both are portfolio companies of Animoca Brands  —  Animoca Brands Corp. founder Yat Siu helped engineer the merger of two startups his firm backed, aiming to create a data … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Charles Hymas / Telegraph: The UK amends the Online Safety Bill to make senior managers at tech companies criminally liable for failures to protect minors, following demands by Tory MPs  —  Social media bosses who fail to protect children from harmful content will face jail now the Government has conceded to rebel MPs Lees verder op Tech Meme