General
Apple chief Tim Cook meets Chinese market regulator after Hong Kong protest app controversy
Kristin Huang, South China Morning Post
Beijing’s top market regulator met Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook in the Chinese capital on Thursday, a week after the US tech giant came under fire for removing an app that tracks Hong Kong protests following a backlash from China.
Google appoints former Obama health official Karen DeSalvo to new chief health officer role
Jennifer Elias, CNBC
The addition of DeSalvo, who has spent the past two years teaching at the University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School, comes weeks after Alphabet tapped former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert M. Califf to lead the company’s health and strategy policy.
NTSB to determine probable cause of fatal Uber self-driving crash
David Shepardson, Reuters
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will hold a Nov. 19 hearing to determine the probable cause of a March 2018 Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) self-driving vehicle crash that killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
Intel will release data on how much it pays women and employees of color
Clare Duffy, CNN
Intel plans to release data on how much its employees are paid, broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, by the end of this year, the company confirmed to CNN Business on Thursday. The disclosure is related to a new requirement by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission mandating that companies with more than 100 workers file information about employee pay, in addition to previously required reporting of employee demographics.
Andrew Yang Injected Silicon Valley’s Favorite Economic Idea Into The Democratic Debate. Silicon Valley Isn’t So Happy About That.
Alex Kantrowitz, BuzzFeed News
During Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate, one candidate after another came out in support of Universal Basic Income. Leading off was Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur who’s built his campaign on the idea of giving a “freedom dividend” of $12,000 per year — guaranteed income, no strings attached — to every adult American.
Amazon’s worldwide worker walkout is just the tip of employees’ activism
Ben Fox Rubin, CNET
Worker movements have grown across the tech industry, with at least half a dozen taking hold at the world’s biggest online store.
SEC opens debate on finding alternatives to IPOs
Miles Kruppa, Financial Times
US markets regulator hears arguments for enabling direct listings to raise capital.
What Happens to a Startup With a #MeToo Scandal and No HR Department
Ellen Huet, Bloomberg
The #MeToo movement has helped uncover the many ways men abuse positions of power, as well as the corporate fixers and financial settlements that enable such behavior. But what happens at a company just getting its start, with a few dozen employees, a board consisting of three men and no HR department?
Stocks Drift Amid Weak Earnings, China Growth Data: Markets Wrap
Todd White, Bloomberg
U.S. equity-index futures fluctuated alongside European stocks on Friday as earnings season rolled on and investors reviewed a mixed bag of economic data from China. The dollar edged toward its weakest close since July.
Intellectual Property and Antitrust
House panel invites Facebook, Google, Amazon to hearing on competition
Emily Birnbaum, The Hill
The House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday formally invited some of the largest tech companies in the country to testify at an upcoming hearing about whether their practices harm small businesses. Velázquez invited Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple to testify at a hearing in November, underlining that the committee is looking for a response by Oct. 31.
Microsoft’s 2019 acquisition spree: 20 deals totaling $9.1B, led by blockbuster GitHub buy
Nat Levy, GeekWire
Microsoft’s 2019 fiscal year was one of its busiest ever for acquisitions, led by its $7.5 billion GitHub deal. The tech giant spent a total of $9.1 billion on 20 acquisitions in its 2019 fiscal year, which ended June 30, according to its newly released annual report.
Facebook Exec Says Regulatory Scrutiny Makes Acquisitions ‘Really Hard’
Alex Heath, The Information
One of Facebook’s top executives, Fidji Simo, downplayed recent defections from the group it formed to run its controversial Libra digital currency, while also acknowledging that growing regulatory scrutiny of Facebook has made it harder to acquire other companies.
Telecom, Wireless and TV
Facebook Asks Supreme Court to Decide Robocall Law’s Validity
Alexis Kramer, Bloomberg Law
Facebook Inc. is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by reviewing a Ninth Circuit ruling that an exception to its telemarketing call restrictions violates the First Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit nixed a provision of the TCPA that allows companies to use robocalls to collect government-owed debt, but it declined to invalidate the entire statute.
AT&T in Talks to Resolve Elliott Management’s Activist Campaign
Corrie Driebusch et al., The Wall Street Journal
AT&T Inc. is in talks with Elliott Management Corp. to resolve the activist investor’s campaign for change at the phone and media giant, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have held a series of wide-ranging discussions since Elliott disclosed a stake in AT&T five weeks ago and publicly urged the company to make changes aimed at igniting its lackluster share performance.
Senate Slates STELAR Hearing
John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable
Confirming a report in B&C, the Senate Commerce Committee has announced a hearing on the satellite compulsory license for Oct. 23. “The Reauthorization of STELAR” hearing begins at 10 a.m.
Mobile Technology and Social Media
Gab, Twitter Hit With Search Warrants in Connection With White Supremacist’s Child Porn Arrest
Kelly Weill, The Daily Beast
The 29-year-old Colorado man first wound up on the feds’ radar for his anti-Semitic “hunting guides.” Now investigators want to know if he shared child porn on the platforms.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter knocks Zuckerberg for invoking her father while defending Facebook
Owen Daugherty, The Hill
Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., reminded Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg what her father stood for after Zuckerberg invoked the civil rights leader while defending the social media company on Thursday. During a speech in Washington, D.C., defending the platform, Zuckerberg twice referenced the civil rights era and MLK when advocating for “free expression” on Facebook, drawing a sharp response from Bernice King.
Video giant Twitch pushes Trump rallies and mass violence into the live-stream age
Drew Harwell and Jay Greene, The Washington Post
At President Trump’s wild rally a week ago, roughly 20,000 people watched in person, and another 40,000 later on YouTube, as he mocked his political enemies and urged a crackdown on refugees.
Airbnb’s Q1 Loss More Than Doubled
Cory Weinberg, The Information
Airbnb’s operating loss more than doubled in the first quarter to $306 million from the year-earlier period, previously undisclosed financial data shows, a result in part of a sharply increased investment in marketing. While that spending could bring in a lot of new business, prospective investors could be unnerved if subsequent quarters show similar losses.
Cybersecurity and Privacy
Why Trump asked Ukraine’s president about ‘CrowdStrike’
Frank Bajak, The Associated Press
In his now-infamous July phone call with Ukraine’s president, President Donald Trump referred briefly to a long-discredited conspiracy theory that tries to cast doubt on Russia’s role in the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Some Trump backers who circulate unsubstantiated rumors have latched onto some version of the theory to support claims he’s being persecuted by “the deep state,” also known as the federal bureaucracy, as the House of Representatives begins an impeachment inquiry.
“I sold my face to Google for $5”: Why Google’s attempt to make facial recognition tech more inclusive failed
Lauren Katz, Recode
On October 15, Google announced its latest phone: the Pixel 4. There’s been hype around this phone for months. Its features were the worst-kept secret in tech.
The Delicate Ethics of Using Facial Recognition in Schools
Tom Simonite and Gregory Barber, Wired
A growing number of districts are deploying cameras and software to prevent attacks. But the systems are also used to monitor students—and adult critics.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
Facebook Stands for Free Expression
Mark Zuckerberg, The Wall Street Journal
Since starting Facebook in 2004, I’ve focused on building services that give people voice and bring them together. Throughout history, these objectives have gone hand in hand—even if it doesn’t feel that way today.
Why Is Andrew Yang So Afraid of Automation?
Rich Lowry, Politico
Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur and gadfly, has definitely cleared the bar for a successful cause candidate. Not only has he exceeded expectations for his polling and fundraising, not only has he developed a cult following, not only has he got people talking about his signature idea, the universal basic income, he actually has other candidates expressing openness to it, as we saw during the debate Tuesday night.
Social media shouldn’t be a ‘sanctuary city’ for child pornographers
Kevin R. Brock, The Hill
Mark Zuckerberg’s social-media mosh pit of everything “me” is about to extend what is referred to as “end-to-end” encryption to Facebook and Instagram users. The good news is that this will provide welcome security to the law-abiding.
Why We Must Ban Facial Recognition Software Now
Evan Selinger and Woodrow Hartzog, The New York Times
Facial recognition technology, once a darling of Silicon Valley with applications for policing, spying and authenticating identities, is suddenly under fire. Conservative Republicans like Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and liberal Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have strongly criticized the technology.
Research Reports
Do No Harm 2.0
Robert Lord and Dillon Roseen, New America
While this report is ostensibly about cybersecurity in healthcare, we hope it is remembered as yet another contribution to the broader body of patient safety literature in medicine, albeit an unorthodox one. Specifically, we aim to highlight the need to mitigate the risks to patient safety created by the growing integration of information technology and operational technology into healthcare, and to propose ways to mitigate that risk.
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