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Bulletins


THE US AND ISRAEL ARE TEAMING UP TO BATTLE RANSOMWARE

THE BIDEN WHITE HOUSE HAS MADE SEVERAL MOVES TO TRY TO ADDRESS INCREASINGLY
FREQUENT RANSOMWARE ATTACKS AND OTHER CYBERSECURITY THREATS.



The U.S. Treasury Department and the Israeli government agreed to form a
partnership to address fintech and cryptocurrency issues, including a taskforce
to battle ransomware.

Photo: Eclipse Images via Getty Images

Anna Kramer
November 15, 2021

The U.S. Treasury Department and Israel's Ministry of Finance will cooperate to
share information and technology to counter ransomware attacks and address
fintech and cryptocurrency issues as part of a new "U.S.-Israeli Task Force on
Fintech Innovation and Cybersecurity."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The partnership, announced Nov. 14 by Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally
Adeyemo, is intended to help protect infrastructure in both countries from
increasingly frequent and crippling ransomware attacks, as well as help
establish shared international standards for regulating and securing
cryptocurrency and other emerging financial technologies.

The Biden administration has taken an aggressive stance on ransomware attacks
and other cybersecurity concerns. The Department of Justice said last week it
has charged Ukrainian 22-year-old Yaroslav Vasinskyi, along with still at-large
Russian national Yevgeniy Polyanin, for helping orchestrate the REvil ransomware
attack that infected Florida-based IT firm Kaseya. The DOJ also said last month
it will treat ransomware with the same priority level as terrorism, and the
State Department is creating a bureau of cyberspace and digital policy.







The State Department has also attempted to force the Russian government to
address the fact that many ransomware attacks on U.S. companies and
infrastructure seem to originate from state-sponsored hackers there, but
sanctions and warnings from the Biden White House seem to have done little to
slow the increasing rate of attacks, according to a Microsoft report last month.


Anna Kramer

Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (Twitter: @ anna_c_kramer, email:
akramer@protocol.com), where she writes about labor and workplace issues. Prior
to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco
Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown
University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her
senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the
Middle East.

ransomware israel biden cybersecurity
Latest Bulletins



ELIZABETH HOLMES TESTIFIES IN HER DEFENSE


Biz Carson


Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes took the stand in a San Jose courtroom on Friday,
beginning her testimony in the criminal fraud case against her.

So far, Holmes' attorneys have stuck to a few themes of her defense, including
highlighting Holmes' inexperience as a college dropout and pointing the finger
at Sunny Balwani, Theranos' former COO and president. She began her testimony by
covering her background and how she came up with the idea of Theranos during
college.



Her testimony comes after 11 weeks of prosecution with 29 witnesses called by
the U.S. government. Despite it being the time for the government to make its
case, Holmes' defense team has so far spent more hours interrogating witnesses
during cross-examination than the government's attorneys did.

The prosecution rested on Friday and ended up removing a charge against Holmes
after a patient was unable to testify. She now faces 11 counts of fraud and
conspiracy to commit fraud. Her testimony is expected to resume next week.







Keep Reading Show less


GOOGLE WANTS THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO LOOK AT A KANTER RECUSAL


Ben Brody


Google is asking the Justice Department to look into whether Jonathan Kanter,
the new head of the antitrust division, should work on the lawsuit against the
company.



Kanter, who was confirmed earlier this week, has been a favorite of progressive
antitrust advocates and Big Tech skeptics across the aisle for his longtime work
with Google foes like Yelp, Microsoft and the News Media Alliance.

A Google spokesman, Peter Schottenfels, said in a statement that Kanter's "work
representing competitors who have advocated for the cases brought by the
department raise serious concerns."

The Justice Department and several states are suing Google, alleging it violated
antitrust laws with its efforts to distribute its search engine onto mobile
phones in particular. The letter, from an outside firm representing Google,
cites ethics regulations to question "whether a reasonable person would find
[Assistant Attorney General] Kanter impartial with respect to the Department's
investigations and litigation related to Google."







The letter echoes the so-far unsuccessful efforts by Amazon and Facebook to
secure the recusal of Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair who has been
critical of both companies' competitive conduct. Amazon is under FTC
investigation, and the commission is suing Facebook. (The FTC and Justice
Department share responsibility for antitrust enforcement.)

Given the Justice Department's purview, Kanter has faced questions about his
former clients as well as those of his old law firm, which include Apple. Allies
of Kanter's have argued that he is not "switching sides" in the Google matter,
having opposed the company in his private practice and now doing so in public
service. Though Yelp and Microsoft have both had disputes over producing
documents in the U.S.'s Google case, his one-time clients also may be not
"parties" to the lawsuit, which is generally the scope of ethics regulations.

In paperwork filed with the government ahead of his confirmation, Kanter agreed
to consult with department ethics officials on recusal matters and follow all
rules.

Kanter Letter by Protocol on Scribd

Keep Reading Show less


GM PLANS TO DEVELOP CHIPS FOR FUTURE VEHICLES


Max A. Cherney


General Motors is getting into the chip business.

After months of chip shortages have crippled the world's largest automakers'
production, costing the industry hundreds of billions of dollars in lost
revenue, GM said that it is partnering with seven chip makers to design the
silicon necessary to reduce the number needed and improve their quality.



GM has plans for three types of microcontrollers, an older type of chip used in
cars for things such as braking and power windows. One of the families of
microcontrollers planned could account for more than 10 million units a year, GM
President Mark Reuss said on an investor call Thursday.

"We see the semiconductor requirements more than doubling over the next several
years as the vehicles that we produce become more of a technology platform,"
Reuss said on the investor call Thursday. "What we're looking at doing and what
we're going to do is a new strategy that will actually reduce the number of
unique microcontroller units, or MCUs, required by 95% to the industry-leading
levels."







Microcontrollers have proven one of the most problematic chips for the
automakers to obtain during the recent shortages, in part because manufacturers
produce the vital chips with aging machines. Chip companies typically expand
capacity after the market demonstrates it can support the capital spending
needed to build new plants, and are even more reluctant to expand capacity in
older fabrication sites.

The chip crunch has been further exacerbated for automakers because features
such as assisted driving and multimedia systems also need more powerful chips.
Electric vehicles and hybrids typically contain a higher quantity of chips to
run the more advanced systems.

The greater number of semiconductors required and the supply shocks have
prompted other automakers to more tightly vertically integrate. On Thursday, GM
rival Ford unveiled a partnership with contract semiconductor manufacturing
company GlobalFoundries.
Keep Reading Show less


CITADEL CEO KEN GRIFFIN OUTBID CRYPTO GROUP FOR CONSTITUTION


Anna Kramer


Citadel CEO Ken Griffin said that he outbid the ConstitutionDAO group of
cryptocurrency enthusiasts for a first-edition printing of the Constitution at a
Sotheby's auction Thursday, killing the hopes of the ragtag bunch of online
donors who had hoped to make a bold statement about the future of the internet.



Griffin plans to have a museum in Arkansas put the historic document on display.
Had the ConstitutionDAO group beat Griffin in the auction — which closed at more
than $42 million, more than double the Sotheby's estimate of $20 million — the
group's founders had promised to have the people who donated to the bidding
effort vote on where it should be displayed.

Protocol spoke to one of ConstitutionDAO's leaders on Monday ahead of the
auction about how the organization coalesced and managed to raise over $40
million in cryptocurrency in just one week. "It's a much more participatory way
to interact with history. We are going beyond museums. Everyone can choose where
and how the Constitution is displayed," Will Papper, one of the DAO's founding
members and the co-founder of Syndicate Protocol, said on Monday.







It's been a good week for Griffin. Robinhood, a notable partner of Citadel
Securities, was recently cleared of collusion with the market maker when the
online brokerage blocked purchases of popular meme stocks earlier this year.

Keep Reading Show less



NEW RULE REQUIRES CYBERSECURITY ISSUES TO BE REPORTED WITHIN 36 HOURS


Sarah Roach


Banks need to tell federal officials of large cybersecurity issues such as
ransomware attacks within 36 hours under a new requirement approved Thursday.



The rule, which goes into effect in May 2022, requires that financial leaders
report cybersecurity incidents like computer system problems, ransomware attacks
and other online interruptions.

Ransomware attacks have been a major issue in recent months, including issues
like the Colonial Pipeline hack and a breach on Kaseya software earlier this
year. Lawmakers had also considered a bill earlier this year that would require
financial institutions to report cybersecurity breaches within a day, rather
than 36 hours.

Keep Reading Show less


BUSINESS IS THREATENING WAR OVER KHAN'S FTC


Ben Brody


The Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful business lobbying group in the U.S.,
launched a series of attacks on the Federal Trade Commission on Friday and
threatened litigation to push back on the progressive agenda of chair Lina Khan.


"The FTC is waging a war against American businesses, so the U.S. Chamber is
fighting back to protect free enterprise, American competitiveness, and economic
growth," Suzanne Clark, the group's CEO, said in a statement announcing "formal
objections" to a series of moves by the agency as well as dozens of Freedom of
Information Act requests.

Clark said the chamber, a longtime foe of the FTC, is showing it will "use every
tool at our disposal, including litigation," to confront what it called the
commission's "abuse of power."

Khan, a tech critic and advocate of aggressive antitrust enforcement, has been
making procedural changes enabling her and her fellow Democrats to speed their
agenda, which also includes resurrecting practices like rulemaking that
businesses and Republicans have long fought.

The chamber in particular called out the controversial use of so-called "zombie
votes." Khan, who has faced weeks with a 2–2 partisan split on the commission
since the departure of Rohit Chopra to take over the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, has used votes that Chopra pre-cast on certain matters before
he left.







The chamber's threats come as Republicans grow increasingly personal in their
attacks on the Biden tech agenda, even though some Trump-allied conservatives
expressed interest in Khan's potential to take on Big Tech when she was first
nominated. GOP Commissioner Christine Wilson has criticized Khan repeatedly in
speeches, and on Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz called Alvaro Bedoya, whom Biden has
nominated to take over Chopra's spot at the FTC, "a provocateur, a bomb-thrower
and an extremist."

Khan and Democratic allies still appear poised for their next moves, however.
FTC spokeswoman Lindsay Kryzak told the Wall Street Journal the commission is
"not going to back down because corporate lobbyists are making threats."

In addition, the Democrats' massive social-spending package, which passed the
House on Friday morning, would boost the FTC's funding, create a privacy bureau
inside the commission and expand its ability to impose penalties. The measure
now goes to the Senate, where moderate Democrats may seek to scale it back and
the chamber is already pushing changes on the FTC provisions.

Keep Reading Show less


FACEBOOK IS TESTING MORE NEWS FEED CONTROLS FOR USERS


Sarah Roach


Facebook is giving users more control over what they see in News Feed, the
company announced Thursday. Over the coming weeks, the company will being
allowing some users to tweak their preferences in News Feed to change the amount
of content they see from different accounts, pages and groups, as well as the
topics that appear in their News Feeds.



"Our Community Standards are in place to help keep the platform safe by defining
what is and is not allowed in our community, but that doesn't mean everyone is
interested in seeing or appearing next to the same content," Facebook's parent
company Meta wrote in the release.

The company also said it will modify controls like Favorites, Snooze and
Unfollow so they're "easier to access." These changes will be tested with a
"small percentage of people" in different countries and slowly expanded in the
next few weeks.

The move isn't a direct response to calls for a chronological feed (although you
can set your feed that way manually), which lawmakers and Facebook whistleblower
Frances Haugen have endorsed in recent weeks. But it is a step toward loosening
Facebook's singular hold on what billions of people around the world see
everyday.







These changes also shouldn't come as a surprise, even though its News Feed has
come under fire for prioritizing harmful content; the platform has run tests
like this for years. "This is part of our ongoing work to give people more
control over News Feed, so they see more of what they want and less of what they
don't," Meta wrote.

In addition to the changes to News Feed, Meta announced that it would allow
advertisers to begin excluding certain topics from their ad campaigns. Those
topics include "News and Politics, Social Issues and Crime & Tragedy," Meta
said. Advertisers who select those topics won't have their ads shown to users
who have recently interacted with those topics. "We see this product as a bridge
between what we can offer today and where we hope to go — content-based
controls," the company said, noting that it plans to begin exploring more
granular controls for advertisers in 2022.

Keep Reading Show less


A CRYPTO GROUP RAISED MORE THAN $40 MILLION, BUT LOST AN AUCTION FOR THE US
CONSTITUTION


David Pierce


The ConstitutionDAO raised more than $40 million to win a copy of the U.S.
Constitution, but ultimately it wasn't enough. The online group, which organized
itself using blockchain technology, lost an auction at Sotheby's that ultimately
ended with a winning bid of $43.2 million.

"While this wasn't the outcome we hoped for," said Julian Weisser, one of the
group's leaders, "we still made history tonight with ConstitutionDAO. This is
the largest crowdfund for a physical object that we are aware of — crypto or
fiat."



Some speculated that the DAO's problem was with the volatility of the ether
currency. Because of its high "gas" transaction fees, and the fluctuation in
prices, the group actually had less money to spend than it appeared, and the
price of the document simply went above its spending power. The real answer
seemed to be somewhat related: They hadn't raised enough money to not just buy
the document but also take care of it on an ongoing basis.







The auction started with a huge amount of confidence among the DAO members:
Though most of the group had never met (virtually or otherwise) before last
week, a smattering of the people who contributed to the fund for the auction
watched — and drank — from Betaworks Studio New York as the bidding progressed.
Even more filled the Sotheby's livestream chat with emoji and excitement, or
observed the auction countdown clock from inside a virtual lobby of Sotheby's on
Decentraland, a 3D VR platform.

Once the auction kicked off, a debate emerged: Viewers spent the auction trying
to decide which bidder, David or Brooke, represented them. They got excited, and
then slightly panicked, and then deeply confused when the gavel dropped.
Ultimately, they were team David, and they lost. It's not yet clear who actually
won the auction.

> 👀 @ConstitutionDAO pic.twitter.com/4sckMlZjMd
> — liz yang ∞ (📜,📜) (@whizwang) November 19, 2021

Spirits were still high after the action ended, though. A group of DAO
supporters jumped onto Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse rooms to praise the
community for coming together so quickly, raising so much money and bringing so
many people along for the ride. The general consensus: We didn't win the
auction, but we did start a movement, and we brought new people into crypto.

"We had 17,437 donors," Weisser wrote in the ConstitutionDAO Discord, "with a
median donation size of $206.26." Donors can get their money back, minus gas
fees, shortly. But more than a few members of the DAO said they wanted no such
thing; they'd built something big, something exciting, and they didn't want to
get out of it.









> pic.twitter.com/6GVxlkvJbj
> — ConstitutionDAO (📜, 📜) (@ConstitutionDAO) November 19, 2021

Keep Reading Show less


ROBINHOOD WINS COLLUSION LAWSUIT OVER GAMESTOP TRADING ACTIVITY


Tomio Geron


A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit against Robinhood that had
accused the company of colluding with Citadel Securities to limit trading of
GameStop and other meme stocks in January.



Investors had sued Robinhood alleging they lost money when they couldn't trade
out of GameStop and other stocks. At the time, Citadel executed a large portion
of Robinhood's trades under an industry business model known as payment for
order flow.

The incident triggered Congressional hearings, where lawmakers grilled Robinhood
CEO Vlad Tenev and Citadel's Ken Griffin.


Previous court filings showed high-level communications between Robinhood and
Citadel Securities on the day trading was curbed. Both companies denied the
accusations.

Keep Reading Show less


STATE AGS PROBE IF META PROMOTED INSTAGRAM TO KIDS DESPITE KNOWN RISKS


Hirsh Chitkara


A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general today launched an
investigation into Meta. The coalition seeks to determine whether Meta (formerly
Facebook) promoted Instagram to children despite knowing the associated mental
and physical health risks.



The coalition is known so far to include attorneys general from California,
Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York and
Vermont. The full list of participating states has not been made public.

"When social media platforms treat our children as mere commodities to
manipulate for longer screen time engagement and data extraction, it becomes
imperative for state attorneys general to engage our investigative authority
under our consumer protection laws," said Nebraska AG Doug Peterson in a press
release announcing the probe.

"Time and again, Mark Zuckerberg and the companies he runs have put profits over
safety, but our investigation seeks to end that behavior," added New York AG
Letitia James. James further clarified that the investigation would focus on
techniques used to boost children's screen time and engagement on Instagram and
the resultant harms.







In September, the Wall Street Journal published leaked internal research that
showed Facebook knew of Instagram's potential harm to teenagers, with teenage
girls facing particularly acute risks.

One of the slides, leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen, said: "Thirty-two
percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram
made them feel worse." Another concluded, "we make body image issues worse for
one in three teen girls."

The Wall Street Journal found that top Facebook executives reviewed the
research. In spite of this, the leadership team went forward with plans to
launch Instagram Kids. The company has since put those plans on hold.

State AGs played an important role in pressuring Meta, then Facebook, to halt
the planned roll-out of Instagram Kids. The investigation launched today doesn't
have as clear-cut of an objective, and could instead involve a fine intended to
dissuade Meta and other social media platforms from knowingly promoting harmful
products to vulnerable users.

One of the biggest issues is identifying those vulnerable users. For instance,
Meta has admitted that many children skirt Instagram's age restrictions by
simply lying about being younger than 13. The state AGs could pressure Meta to
add ID verification systems, though this would likely elicit pushback from
privacy and free-speech advocates.
Keep Reading Show less


OPENAI'S GPT-3 TEXT-GENERATOR API IS NOW OPEN TO EVERYONE


Nat Rubio-Licht


OpenAI has removed the waitlist for GPT-3, its AI programming interface that can
produce text such as emails, articles and code, it announced Thursday.



GPT-3 is now available in dozens of supported countries for developers to
integrate into their services and apps. OpenAI attributed the increased
availability to safeguards put in place to properly deploy the interface,
including "more truthful question-answering" and a content filter to "mitigate
abuse."

The company claims that GPT-3, which has been open to the public since last year
for those willing to join the waitlist, is being used in over 300 apps by "tens
of thousands" of developers.

Keep Reading Show less


XBOX CHIEF PHIL SPENCER JOINS SONY IN SLAMMING ACTIVISION BLIZZARD


Nick Statt


Xbox chief Phil Spencer said Microsoft is in the process of reevaluating its
relationship with major game publisher Activision Blizzard. His comments come in
the wake of a Wall Street Journal report regarding CEO Bobby Kotick's prior
knowledge of sexual assault and workplace discrimination, according to a leaked
email sent to Microsoft staff and obtained by Bloomberg.



Spencer told Xbox staff that he was "disturbed and deeply troubled by the
horrific events and actions" at Activision Blizzard, referring specifically to
the WSJ report on Kotick. "This type of behavior has no place in our industry,"
Spencer added, saying Microsoft would, going forward, have to think about how
closely it wants to associate with the publisher.

Spencer's comments come on the heels of PlayStation chief Jim Ryan similarly
rebuking Kotick and the leadership at Activision Blizzard in an email to staff
Wednesday. "We outreached to Activision immediately after the article was
published to express our deep concern and to ask how they plan to address the
claims made in the article," Ryan wrote, according to Bloomberg. "We do not
believe their statements of response properly address the situation."







Taken together, Spencer and Ryan's statements form the harshest condemnation of
Activision Blizzard from high-level game executives to date and reflect the
severe atmosphere in which Kotick now attempts to navigate the crisis and hold
onto his job in the process. The ABK Workers Alliance, an employee activist
group, has called for Kotick's resignation, as has a group of investors.

Since the WSJ report published, a number of details surrounding Activision
Blizzard's poor handling of the situation have come to light, including how it
failed to pay the new female co-lead of Blizzard, Jen Oneal, the same salary as
her male counterpart, leading in part to Oneal's resignation mere months after
taking over for disgraced former president J. Allen Brack.

Despite the wave of negative stories and increasing backlash from the industry,
the board of directors has stood by Kotick. The company has since tried to
reassure employees that it is committed to change, though some workers have
reportedly been unconvinced by many of the gestures, including a seemingly
strategic week of time off for the Thanksgiving holiday.


"We respect all feedback from our valued partners and are engaging with them
further," Activision said in a statement. "We have detailed important changes we
have implemented in recent weeks, and we will continue to do so. We are
committed to the work of ensuring our culture and workplace are safe, diverse,
and inclusive. We know it will take time, but we will not stop until we have the
best workplace for our team."







The Wall Street Journal's report on Tuesday detailed how involved Kotick has
been in past instances of misconduct and helping cover them up, including his
protection of high-level employees accused of sexual harassment and his role in
reaching out-of-court settlements with accusers that he subsequently kept hidden
from his board.


Activision Blizzard is now under investigation by the SEC for this alleged
behavior, and the company also remains in a legal battle with California over an
investigation the state launched in 2018 into the company's workplace issues.
California's lawsuit kicked off a reckoning at the company this past summer and
resulted in numerous firings, employee protests, a federal settlement and a
number of measures from Kotick and upper management to try and quell the storm,
including a pay cut for the chief executive and the end of forced arbitration
clauses in worker contracts.

But mounting pressure on Kotick to resign for his complicity and active
participation in the company's toxic workplace culture has brought renewed
attention to company's failings.

Keep Reading Show less


AMAZON REPORTEDLY GAVE EMPLOYEES ACCESS TO CUSTOMER DATA


Nat Rubio-Licht


In an effort to address its customers' requests quickly, Amazon reportedly put
millions of them at risk. The company has allowed its workforce to abuse its
access to large quantities of customer data, and has missed large outside
security risks, a Wired investigation found.



Amazon's meager internal security system allowed lower-level employees to snoop
on customer purchases, accept bribes from sellers to sabotage their competitors
and tamper with customer reviews. The company reportedly had no system in place
to prevent employee security risks; Amazon's former CISO, Gary Gagnon, called it
a "free-for-all."

Its security system also lets outside threats slip through the cracks. According
to the investigation, Amazon's seller metrics program gave third-party
developers the ability to hoard customer data, including a Chinese data firm
which stockpiled the information of millions of its users. Around 24 million
American Express card numbers and names lived in an unsecured spot within
Amazon's system for two years too, with no way for the security team to check if
the data was improperly accessed.







The company's strapped information security staff may have been part of the
problem, as its team of 300 couldn't keep track of the tens of thousands of
terabytes of user data.

Amazon spokesperson Jen Bemisderfer told Wired in an email that the company has
"an exceptional track record of protecting customer data. The fact that Amazon's
privacy and security issues are extensively documented with extensive review
from senior leadership highlights our commitment to these issues and
demonstrates the vigilance with which we identify, escalate, and respond to
potential risks."

Keep Reading Show less


FORD SIGNS CHIP MANUFACTURING DEAL WITH GLOBALFOUNDRIES


Max A. Cherney


Ford struck a deal with recently public contract chip manufacturer
GlobalFoundries to secure enough semiconductors for its auto production amid a
shortage, it announced Thursday.



The two companies said the deal would help Ford secure more chip supplies for
its current products and includes joint research and development projects to
address the increased demand for chips in cars thanks to features such as
assisted driving and for electric vehicles. Those are two of the most
significant contributors to the rise in demand for chips in autos.

"This agreement is just the beginning, and a key part of our plan to vertically
integrate key technologies and capabilities that will differentiate Ford far
into the future," Ford CEO Jim Farley said.

Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the deal.

The auto industry has been severely damaged by the global shortage for chips,
which may cost the industry $210 billion in lost revenue, according to
AlixPartners. Thursday's agreement is another sign of how a range of businesses
have been upended by the surge in demand for chips. Before the COVID-19
pandemic, an agreement between an automaker and a chip manufacturer would have
been quite surprising.







GlobalFoundries had a lackluster debut on Wall Street last month, after its
controlling shareholder, Mubadala Investment Company, elected to take the
company public. Mubadala is an arm of the Abu Dhabi government, and continues to
retain a controlling stake in GlobalFoundries.

Keep Reading Show less


APPLE SETS FEB. 1 RETURN TO THE OFFICE


Allison Levitsky


Apple won't call its employees back to the office until Feb. 1, according to
news reports.



The company reportedly told employees Thursday that they can work remotely
full-time through the end of January. Most people will only have to come in once
or twice per week in February, with exceptions for teams whose work requires
them to meet in person more often.

Starting in March, Apple will start its full hybrid schedule, where most
employees come in Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

The company's inflexible hybrid work schedule has been the subject of some
internal controversy and an employee movement in support of more remote work
flexibility. According to The Information, Apple will now allow for up to four
weeks of full-time remote work per year, up from the two it had previously
indicated.

Apple spokesperson Chloe Sanchez Sweet declined to comment on the news.

Keep Reading Show less


NEOBANK N26 IS SHUTTING DOWN US OPERATIONS


Tomio Geron


German neobank N26 plans to shut down its U.S. operations, it announced
Thursday. The service won't be available to U.S. customers after Jan. 11, 2022.



The company plans to expand into additional verticals such as investing and to
other countries in Europe, it said in a release. N26 stopped its U.K. operations
last year.

Last month, N26 was ordered by German regulators to slow down onboarding new
customers due to potential money laundering issues.


Meanwhile, last month U.K. neobank Monzo said it had pulled its application for
a banking charter in the U.S.


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MEET CHINA'S NEW NATIONAL ANTI-MONOPOLY BUREAU 


Zeyi Yang


On Thursday, China officially launched the new national bureau to supervise
anti-monopoly work.



According to the bureau's website, the new administration will consist of three
divisions, each focusing on a different task: policymaking, rules enforcement
and M&A reviews.


What pops out from the official description of each division's responsibility is
the focus on the digital economy. It is the only industry singled out as an
emphasis of the bureau's work going forward, after several major Chinese tech
companies like Alibaba have gone through anti-monopoly reviews this year.

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WORK IS NO LONGER THE MEANING OF LIFE FOR SOME AMERICANS


Anna Kramer


Before the coronavirus pandemic, nearly one quarter of all Americans said that
they find meaning and purpose in their lives because of their work and their
jobs. Now, that number has declined by more 9% in a new Pew research study,
affirming anecdotal stories about the American population's increasing
disinterest in participating in the labor market.



The survey researchers, writing in a summary of an analysis that compares global
surveys about the meaning of life from 2017 and early 2021, suggest that the
rapid falloff in finding meaning in work for Americans is related to the way
people were forced to work from home and how shifting values and priorities
during the pandemic affected people's relationship to work.

Higher-income and college-educated people were the most likely to find meaning
in work before the pandemic, and the falloff in valuing careers can be seen
within those specific groups as well. "While Americans with higher incomes and
those with a college degree remain the most likely to bring up their jobs, both
groups have become less likely to do so, with a decline from 37% to 27% among
those in the upper-income tier and a decline from 39% to 26% among the
college-educated," the researchers wrote in the report.







Tech companies have broadly reported an increasingly difficult battle to hire
top talent over the last year, while the labor market as a whole is facing an
unusually high shortage of applicants for all types of jobs and income levels.
At Facebook, company internal reports described top engineers willing to turn
down job offers and new tech startups flush with VC money on hiring sprees; on
Glassdoor, Facebook's lowest ratings came from people fed-up with their lack of
work-life balance. Both Microsoft and Amazon have said publicly that they want
to hire hundreds of thousands of people for jobs in fulfillment, truck driving,
cybersecurity, and corporate. Workers with unlimited paid-time-off aren't taking
the vacation, and then reporting unusually high levels of burnout. Candidates
are opting for companies that offer ever-increasing flexibility with when and
how they work, and they feel empowered to demand more workplace benefits as part
of their job offers.

The Great Resignation is not a myth — and this new Pew study shows that it
stems, in part, from a fundamental shift in how people value their work, and
what place they believe their jobs should have in their lives.







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DO YOU WFH ON FRIDAYS? IT MIGHT DEPEND ON WHERE YOU LIVE.


Allison Levitsky


Midweek is the most popular time for tech workers to go to the office. But
that's not the case everywhere.



Friday was one of the most popular days for Bay Area tech workers to show up to
the office last month, according to a new report from Robin, a hybrid work
management platform. In Boston, Chicago and New York, Friday was the slowest day
at tech offices, Robin found.

Los Angeles tech offices were by far the most bustling on Wednesdays, the day
when workers made 43% of their weekly desk bookings. In Chicago, 38% of desk
bookings came in on Thursdays, making that the busiest day at local tech
offices.

New York and Boston saw a pretty even split among Tuesdays, Wednesdays and
Thursdays, which are the most popular days to go to the office across the
industry.

But things are different in the Bay Area. San Francisco-area tech offices are
the busiest on Wednesdays (22%), Thursdays (24%) and Fridays (22%), with Mondays
the slowest at 13%.







And across geographies, the lights are coming back on at tech offices: There
were 30% more desk bookings in October than in September. Even with that
increase, the average tech worker only came in once a week, Robin found.

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A THERANOS BACKER INVESTED DESPITE WARNING SIGNS


Biz Carson


PFM Health Sciences partner Brian Grossman invested in Theranos despite red
flags raised during diligence, according to evidence presented Wednesday in the
ongoing fraud trial of former CEO Elizabeth Holmes.

During the process of vetting the blood-testing company, a colleague asked a
contact at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois about Theranos, only to be told
its tech didn't work. "They said they evaluated service and came to the
conclusion that it does not work. They have no contract with Theranos and they
did extensive diligence on the machine and came to this conclusion," a PFM team
member said in an email to Grossman.



In another review on the FDA risk, Grossman was warned by an analyst that it was
possible that the FDA might never grant approval to some of Theranos' tests. "My
conclusion is that we have to account for risk that the FDA will decide to
regulate Theranos much earlier than they think, which may slow down or derail
the launch," the analysis said an email. "We also have to assume that there is a
possibility that they will never be able to get certain tests approved by the
FDA and they will remain venous blood draw tests (which they mentioned.)"







Even with the warning signs, Grossman went ahead with the investment, his
confidence partially buoyed by a call to Stanford professor Channing Robertson
who had ties to his father-in-law, Stanford professor David Brady. On Jan. 26,
Grossman wrote to his partner at PFM that he was feeling better about the
investment. "Valuation and terms aside, which are obviously tough to swallow,
I'm feeling even better about this now. I had a mind blowing call yesterday w/
Elizabeth's professor who helped her start this," he wrote.

Still, Grossman knew and acknowledged that there were risks to the investment,
he said in conclusion of his testimony. He didn't expect Elizabeth Holmes being
untruthful and not disclosing the use of third-party devices to be one of them.

"Did you think one of the risks here was that the founder and CEO was not being
truthful to you?" prosecutor Robert Leach asked.


"We did not think that was one of the risks," Grossman said.

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NVIDIA ACKNOWLEDGES THE FTC HAS CONCERNS OVER THE $40 BILLION ARM DEAL


Max A. Cherney


Nvidia disclosed late Wednesday that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has
"expressed concerns" over its $40 billion bid to acquire chip designer Arm,
according to its chief financial officer.



CFO Colette Kress said during the company's fiscal third-quarter earnings
conference call the deal was under review by the FTC, but did not elaborate on
the nature of the regulator's worries. Kress said the company was discussing
remedies to the FTC's concerns. Arm licensees have also raised issues with the
potential deal, Kress said.

Despite the setbacks Kress said, "We continue to believe in the merits and
benefits of the acquisition to Arm, its licensees, and the industry."

The deal, first announced more than a year ago, has encountered regulatory
resistance around the world. Regulators in the U.K. and the European Union
launched in-depth investigations into the deal. Just Tuesday, the U.K.'s Digital
Secretary ordered the country's Competition and Markets Authority to conduct a
six-month review of the deal over competition and national security concerns.







The transaction also requires approval from Chinese regulators.

Nvidia reported third-quarter profit of $2.46 billion on revenue of $7.1
billion. Data center sales jumped 55% to $2.94 billion from the year-ago period.
On a sequential basis, data center revenue rose 24%.

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SALESFORCE TELLS TEAMS TO GATHER IN PERSON BY THE END OF THE YEAR


Allison Levitsky


Salesforce isn't waiting until its January reopening to get its teams together.
The software giant is encouraging managers to gather their teams in person at
least once before the end of the year.



"There's been too much focus on return-to-office dates," Salesforce President
and Chief People Officer Brent Hyder said in a company blog post. "We've proven
that we can come together safely in person through Dreamforce and our 65+ open
offices around the globe."

The in-person get-togethers can take the form of a strategy session, workshop or
holiday party, Hyder said. No matter the approach, the goal is to "fundamentally
improve team dynamics after months of not seeing each other."

Salesforce's announcement reflects the reality of transitioning to hybrid work:
It's a gradual process.

Plenty of tech offices have been open for months, even as large companies like
Salesforce allow employees to continue working remotely until their full
reopening, which Salesforce is still planning for Jan. 1.







Similar to companies like Amazon and Intel, Salesforce said it would let teams
decide how often they come to the office and what kind of work they do at home.

Correction: This story was updated Wednesday to clarify that Salesforce teams
can choose how often they get together.


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SNOWFLAKE INTEGRATIONS PROMISE NEW DATA GOVERNANCE GUARDRAILS


Kate Kaye


Corporations are sucking up massive amounts of data and passing it around to all
sorts of software partners, but setting privacy and security limits for certain
types of data hasn't always been top of mind. Amid a flurry of product updates
this week, cloud data giant Snowflake has expanded its data governance
capabilities and integrations with several firms that provide various services
for automating data protections.



In general, the data governance partners, including Accenture, DataOps.live and
OneTrust, among others, promise businesses some balance between full-speed-ahead
data use and compliance with company and regulatory rules. As regulators crack
down on data collection and use, businesses are recognizing the need to set
rules to govern who can access their data and how they can use it.


Snowflake said the new capabilities include a way to keep track of which
specific data columns or tables have been accessed in a data query. Accenture
said its data governance offerings include data quality and relevance
assessments, while Alation, another Snowflake partner, lets companies manage
data governance policies for Snowflake — such as rules for data access — from
within its Alation platform. Meanwhile, OneTrust, a firm that serves as the
backend for many website cookie collection and privacy notices, said it can
apply data security rules set up in Snowflake to its data preference management
records.







The idea behind these integrations is to enable governance protections that
block access and travel along with data as it moves from one system to another.
However, it remains to be seen whether these sorts of data governance tools can
satisfy the growing chorus of critics in government and academia urging AI and
data-centric tech firms to slow down data use and minimize data collection.

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CHINESE BIG TECH'S NEW FEAR: CROWDSOURCED, SHARABLE DOCS


Shen Lu


A crowdsourced spreadsheet with a blacklist of bad managers at big Chinese
internet platform companies went viral on Chinese social media earlier this
week.



Screenshots of the shared Tencent Sheets, the Tencent equivalent of Google
Sheets (banned in China), named and shamed managers of specific teams in Chinese
Big Tech, detailed working conditions and team dynamics, and included advice for
those looking to land jobs on the teams.


The criterion for judging a bad manager is whether they are a so-called "pick-up
artist," or PUA. In China, PUA is now a commonly known term referring to the
superior in a relationship who gaslights and suppresses their subordinate. For
positions that the blacklist didn't recommend, the advice was crisp and urgent:
Run! (快逃).

There's no way to verify the authenticity of the information, and Chinese media
has reported that the shared spreadsheet was promptly reported for violations
and is now inaccessible.







Shared docs have had a banner year in China. Chinese netizens' creative use of
shared documents has allowed simple spreadsheets to become a crowdsourcing tool
for mutual aid in times of crisis and a self-organizing tool for tech workers
seeking to expose grueling working conditions.

Just last month, thousands of white collar Chinese tech workers participated in
another collaborative project they called "Worker Lives Matter," sharing their
extended work hours, exposing tech companies that still adopted a "996" schedule
and workplace cultures. A few weeks later, tech giants from ByteDance to Tencent
announced they would strictly follow an 8-hour, 5-workday schedule, in
compliance with China's labor laws. It's unknown whether workers' online expose
prompted BigTech to abolish a brutal overtime policy that tech workers had long
criticized.

This past summer, shared docs played a key role in disaster relief in the
flood-stricken Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province. Thousands of
residents crowdsourced relief assistance over a 48 hour period through a single
Tencent doc, rescuing those awaiting rescue. The document contained information
including contact information for official and unofficial rescue teams, relief
resources, shelter locations, phone-charging stations and online medical
consultations.

Grassroots digital crowdsourcing efforts in China first made an impact during
the initial COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020. Citizens started shared documents
to help catalog reliable news coverage about the epidemic, to list outpatient
clinics across Hubei province and to create tools for procuring medical supplies
from abroad and clearing customs. Volunteers also raced to archive censored
media coverage and threatened personal accounts of those suffering from disease
or injustice. In a restrictive media and information environment like China,
these shared docs have been essential for Chinese citizens to access reliable
information in times of crisis and communicate with wider communities.







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AMAZON WON'T ACCEPT VISA CREDIT CARDS IN THE UK


Lizzy Lawrence


Amazon said it would stop accepting Visa credit cards issues in the U.K.
starting Jan. 19, 2022. The company blamed Visa's high credit-card transaction
fees for the change.



"The cost of accepting card payments continues to be an obstacle for businesses
striving to provide the best prices for customers," an Amazon spokesperson told
TechCrunch. "These costs should be going down over time with technological
advancements, but instead they continue to stay high or even rise."

Consumers will have to switch to a Visa debit card or a credit card operating on
the Mastercard, American Express or Eurocard networks post-January. A Visa
spokesperson told TechCrunch it was disappointed "Amazon is threatening to
restrict consumer choice in the future" and "when consumer choice is limited,
nobody wins." The credit card company said it's working toward reaching an
agreement with Amazon to roll back the change.

Amazon responded to confused consumers on Twitter on Wednesday, some of who
expressed annoyance and pinned the change on Brexit. Previously, European Union
law capped Visa's transaction fees between the U.K. and the EU at 0.3%. When the
U.K. left the EU, Visa was able to increase the fee to 1.5%. Mastercard did the
same. Both Amazon and Visa told the BBC the fee changes had nothing to do with
Brexit.







> http://Amazon.co.uk\u00a0 will continue accepting Visa debit cards, and any
> Visa credit card issued outside of the UK. Only Visa credit cards issued in
> the UK will no longer be accepted. For accepted payment methods please visit
> https://amzn.to/3pRWWcZ\u00a0. -Christyn
> — Amazon Help (@Amazon Help) 1637140628

Amazon has antagonized Visa for a while now. The company announced a surcharge
for Visa credit card transactions in Singapore in September, and in Australia
after that.

Other retailers have sparred with credit card networks as well. Walmart sued
Visa over card fees in 2014 and blocked Visa from some of its Canadian stores in
2016.

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