Author: TechBrunch

The Florida bill, which required social media companies to provide encrypted backdoors to allow police to access user accounts and private messages, could not be handed over to the law. The use of social media under the minor bill was “indefinitely postponed” and “withdrawed from consideration” in the Florida House earlier this week. While Florida Senate lawmakers have already voted to advance the law, the bill requires it to pass both legislative rooms before it becomes law. The bill would have required social media companies to provide a mechanism to decrypt end-to-end encryption when law enforcement obtains a subpoena. The…

Josh Rafaelli, who has deep roots as a Silicon Valley investor and supports many Elonmsk companies, is suing his former employer, a massive trillion dollar Aum Brookfield Asset Management, reports The New York Times. Many of Raffaelli's complaints relate to how Brookfield covered pandemic-related property losses, claiming that the company fired him after filing a whistleblower complaint with the SEC. His lawsuit filed allegations of fraud and bribery, but Brookfield vehemently denies fraud, the Times said. In February, Brookfield quietly closed a venture capital unit run by Raffaelli, and involved some of its assets in another unit, Bloomberg reported at…

In April, South Korean telephone company giant SK Telecom (SKT) was hit by a cyber attack that led to theft of personal data on roughly 23 million customers. During a National Assembly hearing in Seoul on Thursday, SKT CEO Young-Sang Ryu said that around 250,000 users have switched to another communications provider following the data breaches. He said he expects the number to reach more than ten times the current amount if the company waives its cancellation fee. The company could lose up to $5 billion (about $7 trillion) over the next three years if it decides not to charge…

App Intelligence Provider More than $10 billion — Apple's US App Store raking last year, according to a new analysis from App Intelligence Provider AppFigures. The company estimates show that US app store revenues more than doubled between 2020 and 2024. In 2020, Apple's App Store committee share was approximately $4.766 billion, up over $10.1 billion by 2024. Based on AppFigures data, US App Store developers used Apple's payment system to generate $33.68 billion in revenue from apps and games in 2024, bringing back $23.57 billion after Apple's cuts. Image credits: AppFigures Apple typically doesn't make the App Store revenue…

The Instagram thread has begun testing video ads, and Meta announced on Thursday. The test makes the thread look like a competitor X, but it is an extension of the thread's advertising initiative, which began last month when ads were opened to global advertisers. The news was presented at Meta's presentation at IAB NewFronts. There, many social media companies pitched themselves to advertisers. In the thread, Meta says that “minority” advertisers will test 19:9 or 1:1 video ad creatives. However, the company did not share any other details regarding the pricing or frequency of these ads. Image credit: Meta's Instagram…

A few months after Hacked Educational Software Maker PowerSchool paid a hacker ransom to remove a bank of stolen student data, at least one school district says it is being forced by someone who said the data has not been destroyed. PowerSchool provided K-12 software to thousands of schools to support 60 million students across North America, and was hacked in December 2024 using one stolen credential. The company said at the time it paid hackers a ransom that allegedly deleted stolen data, but repeatedly refused to disclose the amount they paid. The Toronto district school board, which now serves…

Google announced Thursday that it is deploying new AI-powered defenses to help fight Chrome scams. The tech giant will begin using Gemini Nano, the leading language model (LLM) of devices on desktops, on the desktop, to protect users from online scams. It also launches a new AI-powered warning for Chrome on Android to allow users to recognize spam notifications. According to Google, Chrome's enhanced protection mode for Chrome's secure browsing offers twice as much protection against phishing and other online threats compared to the standard protection mode of the browser. Currently, Google uses Gemini Nano to provide enhanced protected users…

It took Kareem Amin, co-founder and CEO of sales automation startup Clay, to see its products take off in 2022. Since then, startups have experienced explosive growth, reaching valuations of over billions of dollars and have expanded their employee numbers to over 200 digits. Despite his average short tenure on the team, Amin made a rare decision. Clay allows employees with at least one year tenure to sell their shares at a relatively high price to Sequoia, one of the existing investors. It's a victory for everyone. The employee tender offer cherishes the $1.5 billion company, up from the $1.25…

The dating app giant Match Group is firing 13% of its staff as part of a restructuring aimed at reducing costs, expanding margins and streamlining the organizational structure. The layoff will affect approximately 325 employees based on matches of 2,500 employees as of December 2024, as per year submissions. Open rolls are also closed. The reorganization aims to focus key features on approximately one in five managers affected, including technology and data services, customer care and content moderation, media purchases and recruitment capabilities for international markets. Spencer Laskoff, who became CEO in February, said in a statement that the move…

Venture Capital Firm Insight Partners said it would warn an unspecified number of people that their personal information was stolen during a January cyberattack. In a statement updated this week, the VC company had planned to notify affected people on a rolling basis starting from “the next few days.” The stolen data includes personal information about current and former employees, as well as information about limited partners, according to the company. This is an investor who provides capital to Insight's venture funds, but their names are usually kept private. According to Insight, the stolen data also includes information about certain…