Tech

Essential tech industry news & intel to start your day.
April 9, 2021
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Top Stories

  • With roughly half of the ballots counted in the vote for Amazon.com Inc. warehouse workers in Bessemer, Ala., to become the first employees at the e-commerce giant to join a union, more than two-thirds so far have voted against unionization, according to a Wall Street Journal tally. (The Wall Street Journal)
  • The Government Accountability Office is investigating the State Department’s cybersecurity practices and its capacity to protect its systems and networks after a number of cyberattacks at the agency over the past decade, according to a letter from a GAO official to the chief information officer at the State Department. The letter said the inquiry began in October at the request of the top two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (Politico)
  • General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. will temporarily halt production lines at additional factories in North America due to the global semiconductor shortage, with the shutdowns impacting about 10,000 GM workers, according to a spokesman. Consulting firm Alix Partners estimates that the chip shortage will reduce the global auto industry’s production by up to 5 million vehicles this year. (The Washington Post)
  • The Commerce Department added seven Chinese supercomputing entities to its trade blacklist, with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo saying in a statement that supercomputers “are vital for the development of many – perhaps almost all – modern weapons and national security systems” and that the goal is to “prevent China from leveraging U.S. technologies to support these destabilizing military modernization efforts.” (CNBC)

Correction: The headline on yesterday’s story based on a poll of 1,000 Asian adults misstated the share of Asian adults who said they had experienced an increase in online harassment. Fifty-three percent of those who said they have experienced online harassment — not 53 percent of all Asian adults — said such harassment had increased during the pandemic.

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Events Calendar (All Times Local)

Friday, April 9
ITIF’s virtual event on the House antitrust report feat. FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson Read More 10:00 am
Monday, April 12
Utility Technology Forum Read More
Nvidia GC’s AI Conference Read More
Tuesday, April 13
Utility Technology Forum Read More
Nvidia GTC- AI Conference Read More
Forbes’ 2021 Blockchain 50 Symposium: Crypto Goes Corporate – virtual Read More 2:00 pm
Wednesday, April 14
CTA Innovation Policy Summit Read More
Utility Technology Forum Read More
Nvidia GC – AI Conference Read More
Senate Commerce hearing on the Endless Frontier Act Read More 10:00 am
Brookings Institution’s virtual event on keeping the workplace safe from AI and surveillance Read More 2:00 pm
 
View Full Calendar
 
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General

White House sees great focus on semiconductor chip shortage
Steve Holland and Andrea Shalal, Reuters

The Biden administration has put a big focus on addressing an ongoing shortage of semiconductors that are used in a range of devices from cars to computers, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday. She said national security adviser Jake Sullivan and National Economic Council director Brian Deese would lead a meeting on the issue next week as part of the ongoing efforts.

MacBook and iPad production delayed as supply crunch hits Apple
Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li, Nikkei Asia

Production of some MacBooks and iPads has been postponed due to the global component shortage, Nikkei Asia has learned, in a sign that even Apple, with its massive procurement power, is not immune from the unprecedented supply crunch.

U.S. Senate Unveils Strategy to Counter China With New Bill
Daniel Flatley, Bloomberg

A Senate approach to counter China is taking shape with a bill introduced Thursday directing the U.S. government to adopt a policy of “strategic competition” with China to “protect and promote our vital interests and values.” The 283-page bill crafted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is part of a push by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to vote this spring on a broad, bipartisan package designed to confront China’s economic and geopolitical power.

Exclusive: Google urges Biden to work with EU on tech and trade
Ashley Gold, Axios

Google is signaling to the White House that a lack of coordination on tech and trade policy across the Atlantic is hurting business.

Emails show Amazon pressed Postal Service for mailbox, a move the union believes violates labor law
Jay Greene, The Washington Post

Emails among U.S. Postal Service employees in January and February show that Amazon pressed the agency to install a mailbox outside its Bessemer, Ala., warehouse, revelations the union battling to organize workers there says violate labor laws. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union is fighting to represent 5,805 workers at the facility in one of the most high-profile labor battles in years, and the National Labor Relations Board is expected to begin counting votes today.

Amazon union vote in Alabama draws 55 percent turnout
Chris Mills Rodrigo, The Hill

More than half of the employees at Amazon’s Bessemer, Ala., warehouse voted in the high-stakes union election, according to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Turnout exceeded the labor group’s expectations, with more than 3,200 ballots submitted to the National Labor Relations Board. More than 5,800 workers were eligible to vote.

Intellectual Property and Antitrust

Apple engineer likened App Store security to ‘butter knife in gunfight’
Patrick McGee, Financial Times

Revelation part of legal documents released by Epic Games ahead of antitrust trial. 

Following Brexit, the U.K.’s competition watchdog is staking its place in the Big Tech backlash
CNBC

The U.K.’s competition watchdog doesn’t just have GIFs on its mind. The Competition and Markets Authority’s probe into Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy is the regulator’s latest move as it takes on a more high-profile role in regulating Big Tech.

Telecom, Wireless and TV

Verizon recalls 2.5 million hotspot devices due to fire hazard
Lauren Feiner, CNBC

Verizon is recalling 2.5 million hotspot devices after discovering that the lithium ion battery can overheat, creating a fire and burning hazard. The recall impacts Ellipsis Jetpack mobile hotspots imported by Franklin Wireless Corp and sold between April 2017 and March 2021.

Verizon’s ‘fastest 5G’ claim stands up in NAD ruling
Monica Alleven, FierceWireless

Verizon can continue using the slogan “fastest 5G in the world” in TV commercials, but it needs to make clear that it only pertains to its millimeter wave (mmWave) network, according to the National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs. NAD issued its decision after AT&T complained that Verizon’s “fastest 5G in the world” statement is misleading because in reality, virtually no consumer will experience that speed due to the poor coverage.

Mobile Technology and Social Media

Big tech CEOs face lawmakers in House hearing on social media’s role in extremism, misinformation
Gerrit De Vynck et al., The Washington Post

House lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Thursday interrogated the chief executives of Google, Facebook and Twitter, escalating their calls for swift regulation of the tech industry.

Ads on Facebook with voter fraud conspiracies were running as recently as this week
Ben Gilbert, Insider

As recently as this Wednesday, Facebook was running ads featuring voter fraud conspiracy language like, “Every illegal vote cancels a legitimate vote.” 

Facebook Sued for Failing to Police Anti-Muslim Hate Speech
David Yaffe-Bellany and Naomi Nix, Bloomberg

An advocacy group for Muslim Americans sued Facebook Inc., alleging that the company’s failure to enforce its own moderation policies has caused a wave of anti-Muslim abuse. The complaint, filed in superior court in Washington on Thursday, claims the world’s largest social network has failed to remove content that violates its rules against hate speech, despite assuring lawmakers and other government officials that it enforces those policies.

Facebook axes 16,000 accounts for trading fake reviews after UK intervenes
Pushkala Aripaka and Yadarisa Shabong, Reuters

Social media company Facebook Inc suspended 16,000 accounts for selling or buying fake reviews of products and services on its platforms, after the Britain’s competition watchdog intervened for the second time, the regulator said.

Facebook and Instagram appear to have recovered after brief outage
Kim Lyons, The Verge

Facebook and Instagram were down on Thursday afternoon. The outage appeared to start around 5:30PM ET, with several thousand people reporting outages on DownDetector.

The quiet war to become China’s next WeChat
Shen Lu, Protocol

In March, Douyin users in three Chinese cities discovered that the popular short-video app had quietly launched a new Groupon-like feature, a “group buying” feed that allowed users to order takeout, book hotels and reserve tickets and services. It’s part of a pattern: Over the past few years, Douyin has beefed up its social network by adding features from livestreaming to ecommerce, from gaming to instant messaging, challenging existing dominant players in each vertical. 

Cybersecurity and Privacy

P&G Worked With China Trade Group on Tech to Sidestep Apple Privacy Rules
Sharon Terlep et al., The Wall Street Journal

Procter & Gamble Co. participated in testing an advertising technique being developed in China to gather iPhone data for targeted ads, a step intended to give companies a way around Apple Inc.’s new privacy tools, according to people familiar with the matter. The move is part of a broader effort by the consumer-goods giant to prepare for an era in which new rules and consumer preferences limit the amount of data available to marketers.

Facebook is trying to make AI fairer by paying people to give it data
Rachel Metz, CNN

Artificial intelligence systems are often criticized for built-in biases. Commercial facial-recognition software, for instance, may fail when attempting to classify women and people of color. In an effort to help make AI fairer in a variety of ways, Facebook (FB) is rolling out a new data set for AI researchers that includes a diverse group of paid actors who were explicitly asked to provide their own ages and genders.

Major DC insurance provider hacked by ‘foreign cybercriminals’
Maggie Miller and Laura Kelly, The Hill

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield’s Community Health Plan District of Columbia (CHPDC) suffered a data breach carried out by what it described as a “foreign cybercriminal” group in January that potentially impacted sensitive data, the company told customers this week. The insurance provider notified customers in writing through a letter obtained by The Hill and through an online announcement on Monday.

Hackers scraped data from 500 million LinkedIn users — about two-thirds of the platform’s userbase — and have posted it for sale online
Katie Canales, Insider

Data from 500 million LinkedIn users has been scraped and is for sale online, according to a report from Cyber News. A LinkedIn spokesperson confirmed to Insider that there is a dataset of public information that was scraped from the platform.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

Facebook and Twitter must ban all anti-vaccine accounts
Letitia James and William Tong, The Washington Post

President Biden has announced that every adult in the nation will be eligible for the covid-19 vaccine as of April 19. The availability of safe and effective vaccines should mark the end of the pandemic, and the start of our recovery.

Clubhouse Hears the Footsteps. Can It Stay Ahead?
Tae Kim, Bloomberg

Despite rising threats and even takeover interest from larger companies such as Facebook and Twitter, the startup is still the one to beat in the live-audio category it has created.

No shot, no shoes, no service. We must try to make vaccine passports work.
Editorial Board, The Washington Post

The culture warriors responsible for turning face masks into a symbol of state tyranny have found a new front for their fight: so-called vaccine passports. The digital credentials, designed to certify whether an individual has been immunized, do introduce plenty of challenges. Treating them as a tool of oppression rather than an opportunity for reopening, however, is exactly the wrong way to address the issue.

YouTube’s Assault on Covid Accountability
The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal

To hold elected representatives responsible for decisions they make, Americans need to know what those officials and their advisers are saying. That’s an essential democratic principle, and it’s as true for coronavirus response as any other policy challenge. So it’s chilling that Google’s YouTube, through its “medical misinformation policy,” appears to be systematically undermining the ability to access material in the public interest.

Research Reports

S. 658, National Cybersecurity Preparedness Consortium Act of 2021
Congressional Budget Office

S. 658 would authorize the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to coordinate with a consortium of academic and nonprofit entities to help state and local governments prepare for and respond to cybersecurity risks.

 
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