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Policy

Tech is reshaping the world — and not always for the better. Whether it’s the rules for Apple’s App Store or Facebook’s plan for fighting misinformation, tech platform policies can have enormous ripple effects on the rest of society. They’re so powerful that, increasingly, companies aren’t setting them alone but sharing the fight with government regulators, civil society groups, and internal standards bodies like Meta’s Oversight Board. The result is an ongoing political struggle over harassment, free speech, copyright, and dozens of other issues, all mediated through some of the largest and most chaotic electronic spaces the world has ever seen.

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President Biden is preparing to announce chipmaker subsidies.

So says The Wall Street Journal in a report this morning that his administration will give “billions of dollars” to the likes of Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), both of which have started US manufacturing projects, although TSMC, at least, is behind schedule.

It’s been well over a year since Biden signed the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which set aside $52 billion to bring more chipmaking jobs stateside.


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Trader Joe’s: run by Elon Musk stans?

That’s right, Trader Joe’s also thinks the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional, just like Musk’s SpaceX. I’m sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with the case the NLRB is bringing against the grocer, and is just a fun coincidence.


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Apple explains the EU’s new iPhone/iPad split.

It’s a difference of three letters, but Apple contends iPadOS is in a different EU regulatory category than iOS, so most of its newly (sort of) open app store policies only apply to the latter. 9to5Mac has a breakdown of that nuance, starting with one big limitation:

The ability to install third-party app marketplaces and download apps from third-party app marketplaces will be an option only on the iPhone.

And of course, that’s far from the only fine print.


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The Verge
Apple’s new default browser prompt for EU market iPhones will have a dozen options.

Among iOS 12.4’s DMA-mandated changes, there’s a prompt to pick a default web browser the first time people in EU markets open Safari after they upgrade.

9to5Mac reports that, according to Apple, options will include the top 12 browsers for that country, presented in random order.1 It also has the lists for each country, so Luxembourg users, for example, should see Aloha, Brave, Chrome, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Edge, Firefox, Web@Work, Onion Browser, Opera, Safari, and You.com AI Search Assistant.


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I dedicate this post to the NSA agent who’s assigned to looking at my cat photos.

The NSA is buying your internet data!

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies sometimes purchase potentially sensitive and revealing domestic data from brokers that would require a court order to acquire directly.

Internet metadata can reveal sensitive information, such as whether someone is seeing “a telehealth provider who focuses on birth control or abortion medication,” Senator Ron Wyden says in his letter confirming the NSA is firmly in your business.


Third-party iOS app store announcements are already rolling out.

One of the first we’ve seen is AltStore, which made its announcement after Apple’s big news today. The post indicates it’s planning to make its app marketplace available on iOS in March.


Apple is bringing sideloading and alternate app stores to the iPhone

iPhone users — but only those in the EU — will be able to download apps from third-party app stores as a result of the bloc’s new Digital Markets Act in March.

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Twitter
The best part of the US’s “special relationship” is trolling the entire UK.

Some scientist has suggested putting salt in tea as the best method of brewing, leading to international uproar.

Of course, putting salt in tea is a fine American tradition.


Apple thought it dealt with Epic v. Apple — has it really?

Apple has started letting developers link to third-party payment processors, but only if it’s on Apple’s own terms.

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Apple’s EU-induced iOS sideloading plans are starting to emerge.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal with a look at how Apple could maintain “close oversight” of iOS sideloading in the EU after the Digital Markets Act’s March deadline:

The company will give itself the ability to review each app downloaded outside of its App Store. Apple also plans to collect fees from developers that offer downloads outside of the App Store, said people familiar with the company’s plans.

I will be very interested to see if the EU is happy with such a tightly controlled approach. The EU’s top antitrust official Margrethe Vestager recently said it “stands absolutely ready to do noncompliance cases.


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Twitter
Oppo pays Nokia, setting the OnePlus 12 free.

Nokia — the telecom giant, not the logo on HMD phones — is still a smartphone force to be reckoned with. Oppo and its sub-brand OnePlus learned this the hard way after infringing upon Nokia’s patents and being forced to stop sales in Germany and other European countries. The new deal solves that, just in time for the flagship OnePlus 12’s release.


WhatsApp’s EU-induced cross-platform messaging feature spotted in iOS app.

WABetaInfo has spotted an in-development “Third-party Chats” feature in the latest beta version of WhatsApp’s iOS app, mirroring a similar feature found in the Android version last September. It’s all thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which will require dominant messaging apps in Europe like WhatsApp (but probably not iMessage) to offer interoperability with other services when it goes into force in March.


A screenshot of WhatsApp’s iOS app showing “Third-party chats” in a menu.
A screenshot of the in-development “Third-party chats” feature in WhatsApp’s iOS app.
Image: WABetaInfo
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“This clear bid to interfere in the New Hampshire primary demands a thorough investigation and a forceful response.”

Congressman Joseph Morelle (D-NY) wants the Department of Justice to investigate an allegedly AI-generated Joe Biden robocall that provided false information to voters — the latest sign that AI-generated disinformation will be an ongoing election concern. The state’s own Department of Justice is already investigating.


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What could go wrong if police run facial recognition on an AI-generated face based on old DNA?

Wired tells the story of California detectives who tried to use facial recognition to identify a face made with machine learning and crime scene DNA by phenotyping company Parabon NanoLabs. That’s not a good idea, said Parabon’s director of bioinformatics, Ellen Greytak:

“What we are predicting is more like — given this person’s sex and ancestry, will they have wider-set eyes than average,” she says. “There’s no way you can get individual identifications from that.”

On a related note, a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on AI in criminal investigations is set for Wednesday.


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OpenAI banned a political chatbot developer in its first election misinformation action.

Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that AI start-up Delphi cannot use OpenAI’s platform after it created Dean.Bot, a chatbot mimicking Representative Dean Phillips (D-MN) for a super PAC supporting his presidential bid.

The bot ran afoul of OpenAI’s recently adopted misinformation policy that, among other things, disallows political campaigning using ChatGPT. The super PAC will reportedly try again with an open-source alternative.


The Vision Pro’s first killer app is the web, whether Apple likes it or not

Apple rules the app world with an iron fist. Now, as developers reassert their control, Apple needs Safari to work for its headset to work.

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JetBlue and Spirit aren’t giving up on their merger just yet.

The two airlines have filed a notice of appeal, pushing back against a federal judge’s decision to block the $3.8 billion merger over antitrust concerns.


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“No, let ME investigate OpenAI!”

The DOJ and the FTC are apparently going back and forth about which agency can look into the company and its partnership with Microsoft, Politico reports.

I do hope the quote I used in the headline has actually been said as part of the discussions.


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The Biden administration is pumping more money into EV charging infrastructure.

It expanded a tax credit today that can shave up to 30 percent off the cost of an EV charger in low-income communities and rural areas. The Departments of Transportation and Energy also announced $325 million in investments this week to fix broken EV chargers, train a workforce to expand the network of chargers across the US, and fund R&D for EV technologies.


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The FTC bans another data broker from selling your location data.

Not only did InMarket Media sell precise location data without asking users for their consent, the data broker didn’t inform the third-party apps using its SDK, the FTC found.

The company’s shopping apps CheckPoints and ListEase requested user location to dole out things like rewards points or reminders — but also secretly used the data for targeted ads.

The regulator recently issued a similar ban on Outlogic.


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European Parliament outlaws meaningless environmental claims.

To crack down on greenwashing, members of the European Parliament adopted a new law that bans “generic environmental claims and other misleading product information.” That includes vague labels like “environmentally friendly,” “natural,” “biodegradable,” “climate neutral,” and “eco” if companies can’t show proof of their environmental benefits. It also stops brands from fooling customers with schemes to offset greenhouse gas emissions, which don’t actually reduce pollution.


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Instagram to teens: “Go to bed.”

When a teenager spends more than 10 minutes watching Instagram Reels or sending DMs after 10PM, the app will now prompt them to close Instagram for the night. Meta’s launching the features amidst heightened concern over the impact of social media on its younger users; Mark Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs are due to appear before the US Senate later this month to “testify about their failure to protect children online.”