Apple does not enjoy this, which should surprise exactly no one.
Somehow, despite that, society remains intact and people are mostly ok with using those platforms with reasonable success.
What isn’t so understandable is just how petulant the company is being about prying open fingers on its tightly closed fist when it comes to compliance here.
At best, it seems short-sighted: Yes, doing so will mean Apple’s revenue picture doesn’t materially change in the near-term.
And developers are increasingly irate at Apple’s antics.
These asks are specifically in relation to requirements that platforms provide data access to researchers investigating systemic risks in the European Union.
“Access to data by researchers is key to ensure accountability and public scrutiny of platforms’ policies.
So, basically, step forward and take a bow Wikipedia — which might just be the only VLOP that’s getting things right (or, well, less wrong) when it comes to providing data access for researchers.
But, under the DSA, they must facilitate data access for research into so-called systemic risks, such as disinformation, child safety issues, gender-based violence and mental heath concerns.
While 17 RFIs may sound like a lot of regulatory action we’re still at an early stage of the Commission’s oversight of the data access for research issue.
Internal Meta documents about child safety have been unsealed as part of a lawsuit filed by the New Mexico Department of Justice against both Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
The documents reveal that Meta not only intentionally marketed its messaging platforms to children, but also knew about the massive volume of inappropriate and sexually explicit content being shared between adults and minors.
“For years, Meta employees tried to sound the alarm about how decisions made by Meta executives subjected children to dangerous solicitations and child exploitation,” Torrez continued.
Meta’s acknowledgement of the child safety issues on its platform is particularly damning.
When including reports from Instagram (5 million) and WhatsApp (1 million), Meta platforms are responsible for about 85% of all reports made to NCMEC.
The European Parliament is calling for new rules to bring more fairness and transparency to music-streaming across the bloc, including proposals for a new bill to force streaming platforms to open up their recommendation algorithms.
The bill would also require Spotify et al to make it clear where a song has been generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
While final details are far from set in stone, this might eventually include setting quotas to showcase a certain amount of work from European artists.
However, the company performed a 180-degree turn when the government gave assurances that music-streaming platforms wouldn’t be expected to cover extra costs resulting from the law.
In response, Spotify vowed to cut back its investment in the French market, starting with pulling support for two music festivals.
The valuation reassessment comes at a time when Reliance is expected to undertake initial public offerings for both Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail.
In 2020, Jio Platforms raised over $20 billion from a series of investments by companies like Meta, Google, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners and others.
Reliance Retail, which raised about $7 billion in 2020, recently raised about $1.85 billion at $100 billion valuation.
The investment bank also expects the Indian telecom industry to hike tariff in the second half of the year, it said.
“On enterprise business we see three areas where Jio Platforms could capitalize on: government contracts, SMEs and corporates (by offering VAS),” BofA added.
Personal translation devices have had a hugely transformative decade.
It’s easy to imagine a time in the not-so-distance future when real-time, in-person smartphone translation is a ubiquitous commodity.
For in-person meetings, two devices are touched together to initiate conversation translation.
Remote users dial into the phone number associated with the product to access its translation capabilities.
The Timekettle X1 is available online starting today, priced at $699.
Spotify is pulling support for two music festivals in protest against a controversial new tax directed at music-streaming platforms operating in France, and threatened more action will follow in the coming months.
While all the major music-streaming platforms have come together in opposition to the new law, including Apple, Google’s YouTube, and local player Deezer, Spotify has been the most vocal.
In the wake of the announcement last week, Spotify said that the move was a “real blow to innovation,” and that it was evaluating its next moves.
The company later pulled a 180-degree turn when the government gave assurances that music-streaming platforms wouldn’t be expected to cover any extra costs resulting from the law.
“Spotify will have the means to absorb this tax, but Spotify will disinvest in France and will invest in other markets,” Monin said in an interview with FranceInfo last week.
Egyptian B2B e-commerce startup MaxAB and Wasoko, a Kenya-based e-commerce player with operations in Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia, are in talks to merge operations, TechCrunch has exclusively learned from multiple sources.
The merger talks come as B2B e-commerce companies in Africa continue to scale back operations due to funding scarcity.
TechCrunch learned that the company had only received $30 million by the time merger talks, which are said to be investor-led, started.
As of last year, the prospect of a merger between MaxAB and Wasoko, both asset-heaving B2B e-commerce startups, seemed unlikely.
The eight-year-old B2B e-commerce company has since expanded to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Back in April, the EU announced an initial list of 17 so called very large online platforms (VLOPs) and two very large online search engines (VLOSE) designated under the DSA.
The addition of the three platforms designated today changes that.
age verification, not self declaration) prior to accessing content — but that could be set to change in the region as a result of the trio being designated VLOPs.
Today we designate 3 additional very large online platforms.
Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos meet the user thresholds to fall under stricter #DSA obligations.
Some two years of talking about gig worker rights later and European Union lawmakers have finally reached a deal on the final shape of the Platform Worker Directive.
The development could deliver a significant boost for millions of gig workers laboring on digital platforms without being afforded workers rights.
There were also divisions between Member States over how much worker protection vs platform shielding they were prepared to commit to.
Rappoteur and MEP Elisabetta Gualmini trumpeted the deal as “historic”, claiming the directive would advance workers rights for millions of gig workers across Europe.
And I am really incredibly happy that we are now managing to provide protection [for gig workers].
