The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published new guidance which has major implications for adtech giants like Meta and other large platforms.
The guidance, which was confirmed incoming Wednesday as we reported earlier, will steer how privacy regulators interpret the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in a critical area.
The full opinion of the EDPB on so-called “consent or pay” runs to 42-pages.
However a market leader imposing that kind of binary choice looks unviable, per the EDPB, an expert body made up of representatives of data protection authorities from around the EU.
“Online platforms should give users a real choice when employing ‘consent or pay’ models,” Talu wrote.
A new app called Buffet is aiming to address the loneliness epidemic by helping users meet new people by quickly matching them with a person and a place to meet up (Think Tinder + OpenTable).
Buffet aims to help users meet likeminded individuals, whether they’re looking for a new friend, romantic partner or gym buddy.
So we put one foot in front of the other and stared building Buffet.”To get started with Buffet, users enter five of their interests, such as motorcycles, horseback riding or reading.
Buffet encourages people to go beyond a chatbox and digital communication and actually meet up in the real world.
Hacking believes that if Buffet can win over the average 25-year-old female professional, it can win over anyone.
Anticipation is building for TechCrunch Early Stage 2024, where industry leaders and budding entrepreneurs alike are eagerly awaiting a bevy of startup-focused sessions.
Attendees can expect to be inspired by Oliver Palnau’s entrepreneurial journey, which began at the age of 23 with his venture into the real estate market.
During the session, Palnau and Romano will detail how to ignite interest from customers and investors, build a minimum viable product (MVP), raise initial capital, and assemble a winning team.
Attendees will leave the session empowered and equipped with practical advice to embark on their own entrepreneurial journeys with confidence and determination.
We can’t wait for this session and all the other early stage–focused content at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024.
Nearly everything else that’s being built on or enabled by blockchains replaces something that’s already being done fairly well.
Yes, there are companies that facilitate crypto trades like Coinbase and Block (formerly Square).
But there’s no actual company that’s developed economic value by doing something brand new or better on a blockchain.
Energy drives the real-world economy, and unless Sam Altman or somebody successfully unlocks fusion and delivers energy that’s truly “too cheap to meter,” it’s going to remain a real asset with real value for some time.
In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Satoshi had some kind of connection to the energy industry.
Not a day goes by without some confirmation that deep tech is on the rise in Europe — and that public and private capital investors are here for it.
Latest case in point, OTB Ventures, which closed a $185 million fund to invest in deep tech in Europe that it will mostly deploy at the Series A stage.
OTB’s take on deep tech focuses on four verticals that do sound fairly NATO-compatible: space tech, enterprise automation and AI, cybersecurity and fintech infrastructure.
This means we can’t confirm either whether the funding that went to OTB could also have gone to, say, a French or Austrian deep tech fund.
Like NIF, OTB is headquartered in Amsterdam, and its other office is in Warsaw, where NIF is also planning to have a regional office.
Users of the popular site Glassdoor, which lets anyone anonymously sign up to review companies they have worked for, say Glassdoor collected and added their names to their user profiles without their consent.
It also means this information can be obtained by legal process, such as a lawsuit or police demanding access to Glassdoor user data.
As Monica explained, Glassdoor will add a user’s real name (and potentially other information) to the user’s account without their permission if Glassdoor learns it.
As part of the acquisition deal, Glassdoor signed every user up for a Fishbowl account, meaning Glassdoor would have to change its terms of service so that every Glassdoor user could also be verified.
Mackey previously defended an anonymous Glassdoor user in court whose employer tried to unmask and identify their identity.
YouTube is now requiring creators to disclose to viewers when realistic content was made with AI, the company announced on Monday.
YouTube says the new policy doesn’t require creators to disclose content that is clearly unrealistic or animated, such as someone riding a unicorn through a fantastical world.
It also isn’t requiring creators to disclose content that used generative AI for production assistance, like generating scripts or automatic captions.
They will also have to disclose content that alters the footage of real events or places, such as making it seem as though a real building caught on fire.
Creators will also have to disclose when they have generated realistic scenes of fictional major events, like a tornado moving toward a real town.
After terminating Epic Games’ developer account on Wednesday, Apple said it will reinstate the Fortnite maker’s access to publish iOS apps in Europe.
This means that Epic can move forward with its plans for an Epic Games Store, and it can bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
Last month, Epic announced it would be able to bring Fortnite and the Epic Games Store back because of Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
“We are moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
But under the new DMA law, third-party marketplaces like the Epic Games Store can come to iOS, lessening Apple’s control over apps in Europe.
We looked at X’s official help center page and ran tests of the feature to analyze how the calling feature works and to understand the risks associated with it.
Because of these privacy risks, we recommend switching off the calling feature completely.
When the test account sends a DM to the real account, the message is received but neither account sees the phone icon.
When the real account accepts the DM, the test account can then call the real account.
When the real account follows the test account back, both can contact each other.
Something I’ve always admired about Lenovo is the way the Chinese tech giant really lets its freak flag fly.
In fact, visiting the company’s booth nestled in the way, way back of Hall 3 has long been a highlight of MWC for me.
This year’s big scrum gatherer was Lenovo’s long-rumored transparent laptop.
Broadly speaking, it looks like a laptop, with a transparent pane where the screen should be.
Lenovo loves making weird tech for weird tech’s sake, and that’s totally fine.
