• Apple Inc. is considering moving up to a third of its production for some devices out of China to other destinations, including those in Southeast Asia, and asking suppliers to look into what such a transition would look like, according to people familiar with the matter, in preparation for retaliation resulting from increasing tensions between the United States and China. The possible shift, which some sources said is still under consideration, is not expected to hinder iPhone production. (The Wall Street Journal)

• The association running Facebook Inc.’s new cryptocurrency Libra is negotiating with the biggest U.S. banks about participating in the governing body and funding the coin, according to a person familiar with the matter who did not specify which banks were in talks. A Libra Association spokesperson said the group is talking with banks in both the United States and abroad. (Bloomberg)

• Facebook has established a new group, called the Strategic Response team, to help the social media company halt the spread of content that can inspire violence in conflict-torn countries. The team, which recently ramped up hiring, includes those who have been in either government or multinational corporations, representing a wide variety of interests. (NBC News)

Millions of Business Listings on Google Maps Are Fake—and Google Profits
Rob Copeland and Katherine Bindley, The Wall Street Journal

Out of habit, Nancy Carter, a retired federal employee, turned to Google for help one August evening. She ended the night wishing she hadn’t.

Foxconn’s Billionaire Founder Urges Apple to Move Plants From China
Debby Wu, Bloomberg

The billionaire founder of Apple Inc.’s largest supplier asked the U.S. company to move part of its sprawling production chain from China to neighboring Taiwan.

Chinese companies spend big to fend off Trump
Theodoric Meyer, Politico

President Donald Trump has done everything he can to squeeze Huawei over the past year, bringing criminal charges against the Chinese telecommunications company, moving to block it from buying American technology and trying to convince foreign governments to crack down on the company.

Renault, Nissan to Partner With Waymo on Driverless Cars
Max Bernhard, The Wall Street Journal

Renault SA and its alliance partner Nissan Motor Co. have signed a deal with Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving technology unit Waymo to jointly explore driverless car options in their home markets of France and Japan. The new partnership represents a significant joint move by Renault and Nissan, following months of acrimony in the wake of the arrest and ouster of Carlos Ghosn—the former chairman of both auto makers.

Klobuchar, others prod Uber, Lyft on recall safety
Niels Lesniewski, Roll Call

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is prodding the leadership of Uber and Lyft about the safety of their drivers using recalled vehicles. Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and 2020 White House hopeful, is leading a letter to the ride-sharing companies and is being joined by three senior Democratic members of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

A Look Inside the Government’s Latest Quantum Computing Efforts
Brandi Vincent, Nextgov

Though some fruits of quantum information science (think atomic clocks and CAT scan technology) are increasingly prevalent in Americans’ daily lives, there is still a great deal of progress to be made across the quantum computing space, scientific experts from government, industry and academia said in Washington Wednesday.

Stocks Edge Lower as Treasuries and Dollar Drift: Markets Wrap
Yakob Peterseil, Bloomberg

U.S. futures drifted lower alongside European stocks on Friday at the end of a bullish week for equities spurred by the decisive shift from central banks back to stimulus mode. Treasuries fluctuated.

U.S. lawmaker says small tech firms fear retaliation if they aid antitrust probe
Diane Bartz, Reuters

Small tech companies fear retaliation from big tech firms like Google and Facebook Inc if they assist in an investigation into allegations the companies misuse their massive market power, the head of the U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee leading the probe said on Thursday.

Amazon patents ‘surveillance as a service’ tech for its delivery drones
Jon Porter, The Verge

Amazon’s delivery drones are not yet dropping off packages, but the company is already envisioning how else that might be used — including by offering “surveillance as a service.” Amazon was recently granted a patent that outlines how its UAVs could keep an eye on customers’ property between deliveries while supposedly maintaining their privacy.

FTC objects to Qualcomm submission of Apple documents in antitrust case
Stephen Nellis, Reuters
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday objected to a move by mobile chip supplier Qualcomm Inc to introduce internal Apple Inc documents in its fight to stop the enforcement of a May antitrust ruling.

T-Mobile CEO says Sprint merger would take 5G nationwide
Corinne Reichert, CNET

T-Mobile CEO John Legere is stumping for his company’s merger with Sprint again, arguing that the combined entity would be the only carrier to bring 5G nationwide, because rivals AT&T and Verizon are “locked in a meaningless race just to claim they’re first.” In a blog post Thursday, Legere said the new T-Mobile would “fix the broken, arrogant wireless industry.”

Ajit Pai tries to kill San Francisco’s attempt to spur broadband competition
Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica

The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month on whether to preempt a San Francisco city ordinance that was designed to promote broadband competition in multi-unit buildings. San Francisco’s Article 52, approved in December 2016, lets Internet service providers use the existing wiring inside multi-unit residential and commercial properties even if the wiring is already used by another ISP that serves the building.

5G Push Slowed by Squabbles Over ‘Sweet Spot’ of U.S. Airwaves
Drew FitzGerald and Sarah Krouse, The Wall Street Journal

U.S. wireless companies’ limited access to some of the nation’s most valuable airwaves threatens to slow down their plans to build faster 5G networks. At issue are broad swaths of the radio spectrum in frequencies that can travel long distances and penetrate buildings.

The story of how NASA created the first worldwide high-speed data network—in 1968
Charles Fishman, Fast Company

There are many hidden corners of the race to the Moon in the 1960s, vast undertakings that were necessary to get astronauts to the Moon and back but that weren’t glamorous or high-profile enough to get much attention.

Google Is Testing the Waters for CBD Ads With Trial Program, CBD Retailer Says
Joanna Piacenza, Morning Consult

Alphabet Inc.’s Google is taking steps toward ending its prohibition on advertising for cannabidiol products through a trial program that allows select companies in the budding hemp sub-industry to purchase ads on its platform, according to one CBD retailer that was asked to participate.

Big Tech braces for first presidential debates, a target of Russian trolls in 2016
Donie O’Sullivan, CNN

Silicon Valley is preparing for its first high-profile challenge of the 2020 presidential campaign: the Democratic presidential debates. Facebook and Twitter are taking additional steps to monitor debate activity on their platform next week and the Democratic National Committee will have a team scanning social media for unusual activity, CNN Business has learned.

Both parties are mad about a proposal for federal anti-bias certification
Colin Lecher, The Verge

Yesterday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) unveiled legislation called “Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act,” which would shake up the legal foundation of the internet in an effort to root out online bias. Under the proposed law, companies like Facebook and Twitter would be required to obtain a government certification that they are not making politically biased decisions about content moderation, in exchange for liability protections they currently receive automatically.

Political-News Sites Forge Ad Group to Compete With Facebook and Google
Lukas I. Alpert, The Wall Street Journal

Political advertising makes strange bedfellows. News sites from across the political spectrum are joining forces to form an ad-sales alliance to compete better with Facebook Inc. and Google as the 2020 election cycle heats up.

Google is giving up on competing with Apple’s iPad as it stops making its own tablets and cancels 2 unreleased devices
Nick Bastone, Business Insider

Google will no longer pursue making its own tablet devices, Business Insider has learned. According to a Google spokesperson, the company has halted the production of two unreleased tablet devices and will not come out with a successor to the Pixelbook Slate.

Dell quietly patched a security vulnerability that affected millions of users
Jeff Stone, CyberScoop

Computing giant Dell released a security advisory Thursday encouraging customers to patch a software vulnerability the company says could have enabled hackers to access sensitive information on “several million” machines running Microsoft Windows.

California experienced more data breaches than any other state in the past decade: report
Maggie Miller, The Hill

California has suffered more data breaches and personal records exposed than any other state in the U.S. over the past decade, with almost 1,500 data breach incidents, a new report has found. The report, published Thursday by consumer group Comparitech, found that data breach incidents in California led to 5.6 billion personal records being exposed.

Iran’s Cyber Army Is Under Attack From All Sides
Kevin Poulsen, The Daily Beast

Iran’s state-sponsored computer hackers have been under a steady and unusually public bombardment in recent months, with details of their secret operations bared to the world and portions of their online infrastructure stolen away. That unwanted attention has left Iran’s cyberwarriors battered and bruised, even as tensions with the West elevate to new levels.

Home Is Where They Know Your Name (and Face, Hands and Fingerprints)
Amy Gamerman, The Wall Street Journal

Chris Pollack hates carrying keys. So during the yearlong gut remodel and expansion of the Greenwich, Conn., home he bought for $1.825 million in 2012, Mr. Pollack built a new entryway with a biometric access system: a wall-mounted Suprema BioLite fingerprint reader with a glowing scanner that cost about $2,500 to install.

Facebook co-founder: Libra coin would shift power into the wrong hands
Chris Hughes, Financial Times

Move fast and break things — our mantra in Facebook’s early days — was an appropriate slogan for a college social network. It’s not appropriate for the global monetary system.

Under Trump, The Fight Against Cybercrime Has Waned
Ishan Mehta, Wired

According to recent polling, Americans view malicious cyber activity as their top security concern—ahead of the economy, nuclear threats, and ISIL. This fear is well-justified.

Josh Hawley’s Internet Censorship Bill Is an Unwise, Unconstitutional Mess
David French, National Review

It’s often the case in Washington that the title of a bill communicates the exact opposite of its content or effect. Think, for example of the Affordable Care Act — a title that seemed almost laughable in the face of skyrocketing insurance premiums. Now we have the Republican version of a deceptively named bill, Missouri senator Josh Hawley’s Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act.

S. 1294, Broadband Interagency Coordination Act of 2019
Congressional Budget Office

1294 would require the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to enter into an interagency agreement to coordinate how federal funding for the deployment of broadband internet technologies is distributed. The agreement would cover data and information sharing among those agencies.