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U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler won’t reverse her decision that prohibits the Justice Department from banning Tencent’s (OTCPK:TCEHY,OTCPK:TCTZF) WeChat from U.S. app stores.
Last week, Judge Beeler said she was unlikely to allow the ban to proceed while the Justice Department appeals the decision.
The judge said the government’s additional evidence of national security concerns didn’t change the fact that a ban would violate the free speech rights of Chinese-speaking Americans who rely on the app.
The Justice Department has also asked the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco to put the injunction on hold during the appeal.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is pushing to shut down a New York University research project into political ad targeting, saying the project’s data gathering violates its terms of service.
The NYU Ad Observatory launched last month with more than 6,500 volunteers asked to use a special browser extension to collect data about the political ads they’re shown by Facebook.
But: “Scraping tools, no matter how well-intentioned, are not a permissible means of collecting information from us,” Facebook’s Allison Hendrix writes to the university. And if it doesn’t end the project and delete the data it has collected, it “may be subject to additional enforcement action.”
Facebook argues that it already offers more transparency into political advertising than its rivals in traditional or social media, and that automated data collection (even with user permission) is an unacceptable privacy threat.
If the project doesn’t shut down voluntarily, Facebook says it could make technical code changes to block the researchers.
The Ad Observatory’s aim is to offer journalists, researchers, policy makers and other the ability to search political ads by state and contest to dig into targeting and funding.
SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) signs a definitive agreement to acquire SentryOne, a leading technology provider of database performance monitoring and DataOps solutions on SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, and the Microsoft Data Platform.
The addition of the SentryOne products to the SolarWinds portfolio also will amplify the depth and breadth of support offered for Microsoft and Microsoft Azure environments.
“For over 20 years, SolarWinds has been committed to ensuring that we bring to market a wide range of products designed to help IT pros solve the toughest IT infrastructure management challenges. As applications and data continue to grow in complexity and volume, database management has become a critical function to businesses of all sizes and types,” said Kevin B. Thompson, CEO.
The Justice Dept. says it’s requiring Liberty Latin America (LILA -0.4%) and AT&T (T -1.7%) to divest certain fiber-based assets and customer accounts, to proceed with Liberty’s proposed acquisition of AT&T’s wireline/wireless operations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
That comes via the DOJ mechanism of filing a civil antitrust suit to block the deal, along with a proposed settlement.
It’s approved WorldNet Telecommunications as the acquirer of the divested assets.
Liberty and AT&T came to a $1.95B deal for the operations last October.
Liberty and AT&T are two of the three biggest wireline providers in Puerto Rico, and own two of the three most extensive fiber infrastructures on the island, the DOJ says, adding its remedy ensures price competition for consumers.
Instagram (FB +0.4%) is broadening a test of a feature made to allow creators with smaller influence on its platform to earn from live streams – an appeal to emerging creators.
The platform’s “Badges” feature lets users tip influencers during a stream on Instagram Live. It’s similar to features on other live-stream offerings including Twitch (AMZN -0.8%) and TikTok (BDNCE). After a small spring test, the company is rolling it out for more than 50,000 creators as a beta test.
The payments (of $1, $2 or $5) are “a particularly good product for emerging creators,” Chief Operating Officer Justin Osofsky tells Business Insider – particularly what are called “nano” or “micro” influencers, those with a sub-Kardashian level of a few thousand or tens of thousands of followers.
And it’s payment directly for content rather than for advertising a brand or product. One lifestyle coach said that in a week of using the feature she drew $1,000 in earnings.
It’s definitely an investment-mode offering for Instagram for now: It’s not keeping any of the money from Badges at the moment, giving 100% of its share to the creators. “Over time as we scale the products, we do anticipate coming up with the right business model, but a lot of this will be influenced by what we learned in the test.”
But Apple (AAPL -0.7%) and Google (GOOG +1%, GOOGL +1%) will still be taking their 30% cut, depending on the user’s app platform.
