Tag: z.techcrunch

The two founders behind Tornado Cash, a Russian cryptocurrency mixing service, have been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, according to a statement on Wednesday. Roman Storm and Roman Semenov were officially charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business,…

The European Commission (EC) has confirmed that it’s opening an in-depth investigation into Adobe’s proposed $20 billion bid for digital design software rival Figma. The Commission said that the acquisition “may reduce competition in the global markets for the supply of interactive product design software and for digital asset creation tools.” First announced last September, Adobe’s megabucks bid for one…

As SoftBank prepares to dive deeper into AI investments, the group posted an unexpected consecutive quarterly overall loss, as well as a continued loss in its existing investment business. SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1 and 2 and its Latin American fund together posted a quarterly investment loss of 13 billion yen ($91 million). That is significantly less than the 2,919 billion…

The pervasive use of facial recognition technology across all facets of life in China has elicited both praise for its convenience and backlash around privacy concerns. The widespread adoption has also fueled the exponential growth of valuations in companies specializing in the field, such as AI giants SenseTime and Megvii. Now the industry is facing some potentially significant changes as…

Nearly 70 IT security and privacy academics have added to the clamour of alarm over the damage the UK’s Online Safety Bill could wreak to, er, online safety unless it’s amended to ensure it does not undermine strong encryption. Writing in an open letter, 68 UK-affiliated security and privacy researchers have warned the draft legislation poses a stark risk to…

Sweden’s data protection watchdog has issued a couple of fines in relation to exports of European users’ data via Google Analytics which it found breach the bloc’s privacy rulebook owing to risks posed by US government surveillance. It has also warned other companies against use of Google’s tool. The fines — just over $1.1 million for Swedish telco Tele2 and…

  The U.S. government has confirmed that multiple federal agencies have fallen victim to cyberattacks exploiting a security vulnerability in a popular file transfer tool. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, CISA confirmed that “several” U.S. government agencies have experienced intrusions related to the exploitation of a vulnerability in MOVEit Transfer, an enterprise file transfer tool developed by Progress Software….

  The European Commission has signalled it could be preparing to break up Google’s adtech business. Speaking during a press conference this afternoon, EU EVP Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s competition chief and head of digital strategy, announced it has sent a formal statement of objections to Google for suspected anti-competitive conduct in its adtech business. If the Commission confirms its…

Meta has been dragged kicking and screaming into another notable privacy concession in Europe: The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has announced a new account center incoming which will see the tech giant provide users of its social networking services with a greater degree of choice over whether they allow it to combine data on their activity across its services…

Last year’s techwide reckoning continues. In 2023, layoffs have yet again cost tens of thousands of tech workers their jobs; this time, the workforce reductions have been driven by the biggest names in tech like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Meta and Zoom. Startups, too, have announced cuts across all sectors, from crypto to enterprise SaaS.  The reasoning behind these workforce…

Google’s Sundar Pichai has agreed to work with lawmakers in Europe on what’s being referred to as an “AI Pact” — seemingly a stop-gap set of voluntary rules or standards while formal regulations for applying AI are still being worked on. Pichai was meeting with Thierry Breton, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, who put out a statement after today’s…

Adam Kovacevich is the CEO and founder of a center-left tech industry coalition called Chamber of Progress and has worked at the intersection of tech and politics for 20 years, leading public policy at Google and Lime and serving as a Democratic Hill aide. When the Biden administration proposed new protections earlier this month to prevent law enforcement from demanding…

The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, said last week that it would stop servicing Canadian customers due to “new guidance related to stablecoins and investor limits provided to crypto exchanges.” But while the exchange said it will return to the country “someday,” its exit leaves behind a huge gap that its competitors are aiming to fill. Coinbase is one of…

  One of the largest pharmacy service providers in the United States has confirmed that hackers accessed the personal data of almost six million patients. PharMerica operates over 2,500 facilities across the U.S. and offers more than 3,100 pharmacy and healthcare programs. In a data breach notification filed with Maine’s attorney general, PharMerica said it learned of suspicious activity on…

  LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs and will begin phasing out its local jobs app in China. In a letter today, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslanky said the decision to shutter the standalone China app, called InCareer, was because of “fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate.” While reducing some roles, LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft and has 20,000 employees,…

Content moderators under Sama, Meta’s content review sub-contractor in Africa, earlier today picketed at the company’s headquarters in Kenya demanding April salary, while urging it to observe the court orders that barred it from conducting mass layoffs. The demonstrations came after Sama, in an email, instructed moderators to clear with the company by May 11, a move the employees say is…