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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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Apple offers Epic “extremely generous” discount on $81,560,362 legal bill.

In a January 16th filing, Apple asked the court to award it $73,404,326 in relief to cover its out-of-pocket expenses, lawyer fees, and other costs arising from Epic’s lawsuit. A bargain, if you ask Apple:

Although it would be reasonable for Apple to seek the total amount of its Losses in this matter, it has provided a 10% discount in recognition of Epic’s win on one out of ten of its claims. This 10% overall reduction is extremely generous, given the undisputed fact that the UCL claim did not constitute nearly 10% of the litigation, as this Court recognized.

Meeeoooow.


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Appeals judges denied Twitter’s argument for not turning over Trump records on time.

The company, which had been fined $350,000 for the delay, argued that President Donald Trump should have been notified when prosecutors investigating him for election interference issued a search warrant for his account data, according to The Washington Post.

Twitter, now X, can appeal to the Supreme Court, which recently declined to hear the company’s broader legal challenge arguing that it should be able to publicly share government demands for user data.


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Disney has settled a lawsuit alleging it underpaid a major film financier.

The lawsuit from movie financier TSG Entertainment alleged that Disney used tricky accounting to withhold millions of dollars from it. For instance, TSG believes it was underpaid by “at least $40 million” for The Shape of Water, making it harder to invest in other films, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The reported settlement’s terms were undisclosed, the Reporter writes.


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JetBlue’s $3.8 billion Spirit merger isn’t happening.

US District Judge William G. Young blocked the acquisition in a decision on Tuesday, stating the move “would eliminate one of the airline industry’s few primary competitors that provides unique innovation and price discipline.”

JetBlue launched a hostile takeover of the low-cost Spirit Airlines in 2022, but it faced a lawsuit from the DOJ that claimed the merger would increase fares for passengers and stifle competition.


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Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong records have been reinstated.

Gaming record keeper Twin Galaxies said in a statement published today that it restored his arcade scores after “fair consideration” of expert witness testimony that Mitchell’s record-setting Donkey Kong run was possible on aging, malfunctioning original hardware.

Twin Galaxies had accused Mitchell of cheating with emulator software, prompting Mitchell to sue the organization for defamation. The two sides recently reached a confidential settlement.


Twin Galaxies Statement

[www.twingalaxies.com]

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Swatting is such a problem, even the White House has to deal with it.

President Biden was, fortunately, away when someone called this morning to claim the White House was on fire.

But he’s not the only one dealing with it. The practice of calling 911 to send emergency services or swat teams somewhere has gone from the early victims like influencers, streamers, and random internet commenters, to politicians, judges, and even prosecutors, like special counsel Jack Smith.


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Apple's Watch workaround to avoid an import ban has reportedly been approved.

Word of this comes not from US Customs, but Masimo’s own lawyers in a letter published by 9to5Mac. It says the updated watches "do not contain pulse oximetry functionality," which is a step further than last month's report that Apple engineers were working on new algorithms.

It means Apple can continue importing the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 despite the patent infringement dispute — just without blood oxygen reading features enabled.


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Don’t hold your breath for Apple’s EU App Store changes to be available globally.

Writing in his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is planning on “splitting the App Store in two” to comply with the European Union’s new Digital Markets Act. One for EU countries, where it’ll have to allow third-party app stores and third-party payments, and one for “the US and everywhere else.” Expect the changes by March 7th.


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The Billy Mitchell Donkey Kong saga has ended in a settlement.

Mitchell settled his defamation lawsuit against Twin Galaxies, the organization that dispossessed him of his Donkey Kong and Pac-Man record-holder status in 2018. Courthouse News reported that the settlement is confidential.

Mitchell sued Twin Galaxies for defamation in 2020 over its accusations that he’d used an emulator to cheat. Guinness World Records, which also removed Mitchell’s records, later reinstated them when it couldn’t prove he’d cheated.


GameStop is pulling out of the NFT game.

GameStop will shut down the NFT marketplace on February 2nd “due to the continuing regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space,” reported by Decrypt yesterday.

That’s the same reason the company offered for shutting down its crypto wallet last year. The marketplace opened just a year and a half ago. The SEC was keenly interested in crypto throughout 2023, and took its first unregistered security enforcement against an NFT project in August.


A screenshot of GameStop’s message about the closure of its NFT marketplace.
GameStop ends its NFT ambitions.
Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge
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Senators are urging the SEC to investigate how its X account was hacked.

After the SEC’s X account was hijacked to post the agency’s premature approval of Bitcoin ETFs, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) are looking for answers — particularly, whether the SEC had 2FA turned on.

SEC’s failure to follow cybersecurity best practices is inexcusable, particularly given the agency’s new requirements for cybersecurity disclosure...  We urge you to investigate the agency’s practices related to the use of MFA, and in particular, phishing-resistant MFA, to identify any remaining security gaps that must be addressed. 


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Come get your Verizon settlement money.

Verizon customers who were charged an “administrative charge” in recent years might be entitled to a piece of a $100 million class action settlement. A lawsuit alleged that the company added a bogus fee to customers’ bills to squeeze money out of them.

The charge must have occurred between 2016 and last year. The deadline to submit a claim is April 15. Here’s the claim form.


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“Not too close, euroscum.”

That’s what Tim Cook’s body language says to me when meeting Europe’s top competition watchdog Margrethe Vestager who pressed the Apple CEO to open the App Store amid other concerns like Apple Music. It’s all part of her whirlwind tour with US tech CEOs ahead of the strict new Digital Markets Act taking effect on March 6th.

Other possible captions:

“Oh, so this is what a functioning government regulator looks like.”

“The only danish I want to touch comes in pastry form.”

Add yours in the comments.


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Google Play will allow more games involving real-world money.

This year, Google is going to let developers offer games and apps on Play that aren’t “covered by an existing licensing framework,” according to a new blog post. Google has already been piloting this in India and Mexico with Rummy and daily fantasy sports apps.


The FAA is investigating Boeing after a door plug blew out during a flight.

The agency ordered a temporary grounding of all Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes after the incident occurred on an Alaska Airlines flight over the weekend, but now it’s opening a formal investigation.

A group of senators are also pushing Boeing to cooperate with an investigation from the NTSB, which will focus on missing or loose bolts meant to hold the door plug in place — something United Airlines also found on its Boeing 737 Max 9 planes.


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Google supports Oregon’s Right to Repair bill.

The company “reaffirm”-ed its support for the bill, SB 542, and released a white paper about its “approach to repair,” as spelled out in a blog post. Google couldn’t resist a swipe at Apple, which has been criticized for its parts pairing practices:

We also do not require burdensome parts pairing or registration, meaning that a properly installed screen or battery will work no matter who is doing the repair. This accessibility is table-stakes, as far as we are concerned.


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EV charging gets $623 million boost in the US.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) announced $623 million in grants for electric vehicle charging projects today. The funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and will benefit 47 EV charging and alternative-fueling infrastructure projects across 22 states and Puerto Rico. Back in September, DOT authorized another $100 million in funding to fix broken EV chargers that dot the US.


Newsroom

[USDOT]

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Would you like a bonkers visual timeline of the decade it took to get a Bitcoin ETF approved?

It’s a delightful run through Very Recent History, with a helpful tracker of the number of submissions that happened and the price of Bitcoin. Of course, we all know how the story ends.


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Twitter
One billion, six hundred and seventy-five million US dollars.

That’s the record civil penalty diesel engine maker Cummins would pay in a proposed settlement after US and California regulators alleged that “nearly a million” Cummins-equipped 2013 – 2023 RAM pickup trucks used software to cheat on emissions testing and were excessively pollutive in real-world driving.

The company also has to spend over $325 million to offset excess NOx emissions, including by paying to replace 27 out-of-date diesel locomotives across the country.


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What was the point of the Twitter / X hack?

“I kind of don’t understand the trade here?” Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine writes of the hack of the SEC’s Twitter account yesterday, in which a fake approval of Bitcoin ETFs was briefly posted.

Linda Yaccarino was at CES yesterday to try to talk more businesses into using Xitter. If I were a troll, using the opportunity of screwing with one of X’s core constituencies and the feds at that precise moment in time would be too good to pass up. The trade is an epic lol, I believe.


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Twitter
X says charges were dropped against a student who posted about free food.

X’s news account claimed responsibility for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne having “rescinded its disciplinary action against Juan David Campolargo,” a student who had gotten in trouble for an account that pointed to events on campus that had free food available.

The low-stakes case was the first apparent instance of the site defending a user in trouble for their posts. The Verge has reached out to the university for confirmation.


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The Verge
You have a bit more time to request a refund from Epic Games’ Fortnite FTC settlement.

The FTC extended the deadline to February 29th; previously, the deadline was January 17th. Epic will pay $245 million.


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Ohio kids won’t have to get permission from parents to use social media — for now.

A judge has granted a temporary restraining order that will stop enforcement of an Ohio law requiring that permission, as reported by the Associated Press. The law was scheduled to come into force on January 15th. You can see the order here.


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How OpenAI’s Anna Makanju made Sam Altman the face of AI.

Here’s a deep dive, published by The Washington Post, into the ChatGPT company’s liaison to global leaders, and her role in turning CEO Sam Altman “into the AI industry’s ambassador.”

The article says Makanju’s coaching helped ingratiate Altman to US lawmakers. As the Post writes, the strategy “could also backfire” if things go sideways with AI and he becomes the focus of lawmakers’ ire.