Byju’s had launched its first rights issue in late January, but a court order directed the company to not tap the funds it had raised through that rights issue after many of its investors opposed the fundraise.
Thursday’s court order is the latest episode in the spectacular collapse of Byju’s, once the world’s most valuable edtech startup.
TechCrunch couldn’t determine exactly how much Byju’s ended up raising in the first rights issue.
In the letter, he urged his estranged investors to give him another chance and participate in the rights issue.
“But my benchmark of success is the participation of all shareholders in the rights issue.
With the aim of identifying criminal suspects, U.S. police departments are increasingly relying on a controversial surveillance practice to demand large amounts of users’ data from tech companies.
So-called “reverse” searches allow law enforcement and federal agencies to force big tech companies, like Google, to turn over information from their vast stores of user data.
Reverse searches effectively cast a digital dragnet over a tech company’s store of user data to catch the information that police are looking for.
Microsoft, Snap, Uber and Yahoo (which owns TechCrunch) have all received reverse orders for user data.
Some companies choose not to store user data and others scramble the data so it can’t be accessed by anyone other than the user.
Byju’s secured favorable outcomes in two court hearings Thursday, paving the way for the embattled edtech startup to move ahead with the extraordinary general meeting scheduled for Friday.
The National Company Law Tribunal refused to stay on Thursday Byju’s planned EGM to increase the authorized share capital for the $200 million rights issue.
The matter will be heard again on April 4, but as the lawyer representing the estranged four investors of Byju’s warned, once the authorized share capital has been increased, it cannot be reversed.
Separately, the Karnataka High Court said Thursday it will only hear the case where the investor group seeks to remove Byju’s founder and chief executive Byju Raveendran from the firm after two months.
The rights issue is crucial for Byju’s, once India’s most valuable startup, as it seeks to tap the $200 million it has already received from a set of investors, including Raveendran.
Amazon will have to publish an ads library in EU after allAmazon will have to provide information about the ads running on its platform in a publicly accessible online archive after all, following a decision by the European Union’s highest court Wednesday.
Other tech giants designated under the DSA have complied with the ads transparency provision.
However, on Wednesday, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) reversed the September decision by the EU General Court to grant Amazon the partial suspension.
It is also a win for platform transparency as it will force Amazon to be more open about the ads it displays and monetizes.
In a statement following the CJEU decision provided to TechCrunch, and attributed to an Amazon spokesperson, the company said:
Controversial eyeball scanning startup Worldcoin has failed to get an injunction against a temporary suspension ordered Wednesday by Spain’s data protection authority, the AEPD.
Today a Madrid-based High Court declined to grant an injunction against the AEPD’s order, saying that the “safeguarding of public interest” must be prioritized.
However the court found the AEPD’s suspension order to be justified on account of the risks around biometric data and how many individuals are being put at risk by Worldcoin’s processing, including children.
Again, the Court was unimpressed, dismissing what it described as “unsubstantiated assertions” and pointing out the AEPD’s suspension is time-limited; only applies in Spain; and is compensable (i.e.
Reached for comment on the dismissal of its appeal for an injunction, Tools for Humanity’s spokeswoman, Rebecca Hahn, emailed a statement she said is attributable to Worldcoin:
It’s been over two years since a key piece of the tracking-ads’ industry’s consent collection apparatus was found to breach European Union’s data protection laws.
A simple ‘yes or no’ to ad tracking is as much friction web users should get.
Critics dub the whole cynical approach compliance theatre: An attempt by the ad industry to evade data protection law and keep tracking and profiling web users en masse by packaging systematic non-compliance inside an industry standard framework.
However action requiring reform of the framework was suspended pending a final court ruling on the IAB’s appeal.
Plus the European Data Protection Board is due to weigh in with guidance soon.
The European Union has confirmed it’s looking into Apple’s decision to close Epic Games’ developer account — citing three separate regulations which may apply.
Yesterday the Fortnite maker revealed Apple had terminated the account, apparently reversing a decision to approve the developer account last month.
Epic had planned to launch its own app store, the Epic Games Stores, on iOS in Europe, as well as relaunching Fortnight on Apple’s platform.
And it accused Apple of breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) by killing its developer account.
The US court ruling Apple is citing to justify terminating Epic’s developer account is unlikely to have standing in the EU.
Everyone profits together.”In other words, Apple’s App Store was originally seen as a platform that could help the tech giant sell more iPhones, as having easy access to popular apps, like Facebook — an early App Store partner — would be a plus for consumers.
Though it made some concessions for small business developers and others, it sees no model for the App Store that doesn’t involve a commission structure.
Apple's bitter griping simply describes their historic, pre-monopoly relationship with app makers: the device provides great APIs, and apps provide great features to attract users.
In America, the issue is coming before the District Court in Epic v Apple as Epic challenges Apple’s malicious compliance with the court’s anti-steering injunction.
Sweeney also retweeted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s video message about the fine and his concerns that Apple will find a way to avoid full compliance.
Elon Musk’s crusade against the extremism research organization the Center for Countering Digital Hate will have its day in court on Thursday.
After Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the CCDH published reports detailing rising hate speech on X and how unbanned accounts, including neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, stood to make the company millions in ad revenue.
Unlike the CCDH lawsuit, X is suing Media Matters for America in Texas, which doesn’t have California’s anti-SLAPP protections.
A loss in court for the CCDH would likely have an immediate chilling effect on researchers who track hate speech and misinformation on social media.
“This ridiculous lawsuit is a textbook example of a wealthy, unaccountable company weaponizing the courts to silence researchers, simply for studying the spread of hate speech, misinformation and extremism online,” Ahmed said.
The Supreme Court could decide the future of content moderation — or it could puntThe Supreme Court is considering the fate of two state laws that limit how social media companies can moderate the content on their platforms.
The two laws were both crafted by Republican lawmakers to punish social media companies for their perceived anti-conservative bias.
“Supreme Court cases can fizzle in this way, much to the frustration in most cases to other parties,” Barrett said.
“It’s clear that the Supreme Court needs to update its First Amendment jurisprudence to take into account this vast technological change,” Barrett said.
“… The Supreme Court often lags behind society in dealing with these kinds of things, and now it’s time to deal with it.”
