Daily Archives: January 14, 2021

News: Tech and health companies including Microsoft and Salesforce team up on digital COVID-19 vaccination records

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A new cross-industry initiative is seeking to establish a standard for digital vaccination records that can be used universally to identify COVID-19 vaccination status for individuals, in a way that can be both secure via encryption and traceable and verifiable for trustworthiness regarding their contents. The so-called ‘Vaccination Credential Initiative’ includes a range of big-name

A new cross-industry initiative is seeking to establish a standard for digital vaccination records that can be used universally to identify COVID-19 vaccination status for individuals, in a way that can be both secure via encryption and traceable and verifiable for trustworthiness regarding their contents. The so-called ‘Vaccination Credential Initiative’ includes a range of big-name companies from both the healthcare and the tech industry, including Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and Epic, as well as the Mayo Clinic, Safe Health, Change Healthcare and the CARIN Alliance to name a few.

The effort is beginning with existing, recognized standards already in use in digital healthcare programs, like the SMART Health Cards specification, which adheres to HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) which is a standard created for use in digital health records to make them interoperable between providers. The final product that the initiative aims to establish is an “encrypted digital copy of their immunization credentials to store in a digital wallet of their choice,” with a backup available as a printed QR code that includes W3C-standards verifiable credentials for individuals who don’t own or prefer not to use smartphones.

Vaccination credentials aren’t a new thing – they’ve existed in some form or another since the 1700s. But their use and history is also mired in controversy and accusations of inequity, since this is human beings we’re dealing with. And already with COVID-19, there efforts underway to make access to certain geographies dependent upon negative COVID-19 test results (though such results don’t actually guarantee that an individual doesn’t actually have COVID-19 or won’t transfer it to others).

A recent initiative by LA County specifically also is already providing digital immunization records to individuals via a partnership with Healthvana, facilitated by Apple’s Wallet technology. But Healthvana’s CEO and founder was explicit in telling me that that isn’t about providing a proof of immunity for use in deterring an individual’s social or geographic access. Instead, it’s about informing and supporting patients for optimal care outcomes.

It sounds like this initiative is much more about using a COVID-19 immunization record as a literal passport of sorts. It’s right in the name of the initiative, for once (‘Credential’ is pretty explicit). The companies involved also at least seem cognizant of the potential pitfalls of such a program, as MITRE’s chief digital health physician Dr. Brian Anderson said that “we are working to ensure that underserved populations have access to this verification,” and added that “just as COVID-19 does not discriminate based on socio-economic status, we must ensure that convenient access to records crosses the digital divide.”

Other quotes from Oracle and Salesforce, and additional member leaders confirm that the effort is focused on fostering a reopening of social and ecomicn activity, including “resuming travel,” get[ting] back to public life,” and “get[ting] concerts and sporting events going again.” Safe Health also says that they’ll help facility a “privacy-preserving health status verification” solution that is at least in part “blockchain-enabled.”

Given the urgency of solutions that can lead to a safe re-opening, and a way to keep tabs on the massive, global vaccination program that’s already underway, it makes sense that a modern approach would include a digital version of historic vaccination record systems. But such an approach, while it leverages new conveniences and modes made possible by smartphones and the internet, also opens itself up to new potential pitfalls and risks that will no doubt be highly scrutinized, particularly by public interest groups focused on privacy and equitable treatment.

News: Plaid CEO touts new ‘clarity’ after failed Visa acquisition

• January 14, 2021
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According to Plaid CEO Zach Perret, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a “sea change” in consumer behavior.

Yesterday, we spoke with Plaid CEO and co-founder Zach Perret after news broke that Visa no longer plans to buy his company for $5.3 billion.

The deal was heralded in early 2020 as a sign of the growing importance of fintech startups. Then it failed to close, eventually running into a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice. A few months later, the acquisition was dropped.

Sentiment in the market changed since the transaction was announced. As TechCrunch reported yesterday, there’s a good deal of optimism to be found amongst investors and others that Plaid will eventually be worth more than the price at which the Visa deal valued it.

What follows is a summary of our conversation with Perret, digging into a number of topics we felt most were pressing in the wake of Plaid’s unshackling.

Now what?

First and upfront: it does not appear that Plaid is racing to the public markets via a blank-check company, or SPAC, a question several readers asked on Twitter. Our impression from our chat regarding near-term liquidity via the public markets is that those with their hopes up have them up a few years too early.

TechCrunch asked Perret how it feels to be free from his erstwhile corporate boss.

He said that the last few years have been a “rollercoaster,” adding that when they made the choice to sell, it made sense at the time from mission, and delivery perspectives — Visa wanted to accomplish similar things and could give his company access to a wide network of potential customers.

News: WhatsApp faces legal challenge over privacy in its biggest market

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WhatsApp is facing a legal challenge in India, its biggest market, after a petition was filed Thursday before Delhi High Court over the upcoming change in the Facebook-owned app’s data sharing policy. The petition alleges the new terms that WhatsApp requires its roughly 450 million users in the country to accept is a violation of

WhatsApp is facing a legal challenge in India, its biggest market, after a petition was filed Thursday before Delhi High Court over the upcoming change in the Facebook-owned app’s data sharing policy.

The petition alleges the new terms that WhatsApp requires its roughly 450 million users in the country to accept is a violation of their fundamental rights to privacy and poses a threat to national security.

Through an in-app alert, WhatsApp has asked users in recent days to agree to new terms of conditions that grants the app the consent to share some personal data about them such as their phone number and location with Facebook.

Users will have to agree to these terms by February 8 if they wish to continue using the app, the alert said. The change has been mischaracterized by many as their personal communication being compromised, which WhatsApp clarified this week was not the case.

The Facebook-owned service, which serves over 2 billion users worldwide, said private conversations between people remain just as private as before. Facebook has also bought front-page newspaper ads in several leading Indian dailies this week to explain the change, which it first outlined last year.

The petitioner said the new terms grant WhatsApp a “360-degree profile into a person’s online activity” without any “government oversight.”

“WhatsApp has made a mockery out of our fundamental right to privacy while discharging a public function in India, besides jeopardizing the National Security of the country by sharing, transmitting and storing the users data in some [other] country and that data, in turn, will be governed by the laws of that foreign country,” the petition, which is expected to be heard Friday, reads.

Several high-profile startup founders and executives in India have also criticized WhatsApp’s new data sharing policy. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive of India’s most valuable startup Paytm, accused WhatsApp of operating with double standards, pointing to how the new change was not affecting the app’s users in Europe.

The outrage over the new change has resulted in tens of millions of users exploring other communication apps such as Signal and Telegram in recent days. In an interview with TechCrunch earlier this week, Signal co-founder and chairman executive Brian Acton said “the smallest of events helped trigger the largest of outcomes. We’re also excited that we are having conversations about online privacy and digital safety and people are turning to Signal as the answer to those questions.”

News: Harness snags $85M Series C on $1.7B valuation as revenue grows 3x

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Harness, the startup that wants to create a suite of engineering tools to give every company the kind of technological reach that the biggest companies have, announced an $85 million Series C today on a $1.7 billion valuation. Today’s round comes after 2019’s $60 million Series B, which had a $500 million valuation, showing a

Harness, the startup that wants to create a suite of engineering tools to give every company the kind of technological reach that the biggest companies have, announced an $85 million Series C today on a $1.7 billion valuation.

Today’s round comes after 2019’s $60 million Series B, which had a $500 million valuation, showing a company rapidly increasing in value. For a company that launched just three years ago, this is a fairly remarkable trajectory.

Alkeon Capital led the round with help from new investors Battery Ventures, Citi Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Sorenson Capital and Thomvest Ventures. The startup also revealed a previously unannounced $30 million B-1 round raised after the $60 million round, bringing the total raised to date to $195 million.

Company founder and CEO Jyoti Bansal previously founded AppDynamics, which he sold to Cisco in 2017 for $3.7 billion. With his track record, investors came looking for him this round. It didn’t hurt that revenue grew almost 3x last year.

“The business is doing very well, so the investor community has been proactively reaching out and trying to invest in us. We were not actually planning to raise a round until later this year. We had enough capital to get through that, but there were a lot of people wanting to invest,” Bansal told me.

In fact, he said there is so much investor interest that he could have raised twice as much, but didn’t feel a need to take on that much capital at this time. “Overall, the investor community sees the value in developer tools and the DevOps market. There are so many big public companies now in that space that have gone out in the last three to five years and that has definitely created even more validation of this space,” he said.

Bansal says that he started the company with the goal of making every company as good as Google or Facebook when it comes to engineering efficiency. Since most companies lack the engineering resources of these large companies, that’s a tall task, but one he thinks he can solve through software.

The company started by building a continuous delivery module. A cloud cost efficiency module followed. Last year the company bought open source continuous integration company Drone.io and they are working on building that into the platform now with it currently in beta. There are additional modules on the product roadmap coming this year, according to Bansal.

As the company continued to grow revenue and build out the platform in 2020, it also added a slew of new employees, growing from 200 to 300 during the pandemic. Bansal says that he has plans to add another 200 by the end of this year. Harness has a reputation of being a good place to work, recently landing on Glassdoor’s best companies list.

As an experienced entrepreneur, Bansal takes building a diverse company with a welcoming culture very seriously. “Yes, you have to provide equal opportunity and make sure that you are open to hiring people from diverse backgrounds, but you have to be more proactive about it in the sense that you have to make sure that your company environment and company culture feels very welcoming to everyone,” he said.

It’s been a difficult time building a company during the pandemic, adding so many new employees, and finding a way to make everyone feel welcome and included. Bansal says he has actually seen productivity increase during the pandemic, but now has to guard against employee burnout.

He says that people didn’t know how to draw boundaries when working at home. One thing he did was introduce a program to give everyone one Friday a month off to recharge. The company also recently announced it would be a ‘work from anywhere’ company post-COVID, but Bansal still plans on having regional offices where people can meet when needed.

News: Samsung answers Apple with the $199 Galaxy Buds Pro

• January 14, 2021
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Even before the leaks, we all saw the Galaxy Buds Pro coming. It was a given that the company was planning to deliver its own take on Apple’s AirPods Pro, with improved sound quality and active noise canceling. The real secret weapon here, however, may be the price. This morning’s S21 announcement found Samsung dropping

Even before the leaks, we all saw the Galaxy Buds Pro coming. It was a given that the company was planning to deliver its own take on Apple’s AirPods Pro, with improved sound quality and active noise canceling. The real secret weapon here, however, may be the price.

This morning’s S21 announcement found Samsung dropping $200 off the price of its flagship smartphone, and here the Galaxy Buds come in at $50 cheaper than the AirPods’ asking price. It’s not clearance-bin pricing exactly, but $199 is a pretty reasonable starting price. And Samsung’s earbud track record is a pretty good indication that the headphones will be solid.

The buds get a stated five hours of on-board battery life. That bumps up to eight hours with active noise canceling and Bixby Voice off — one of those things I can fairly easily live without. The case bumps things up to 18 and 28 hours, respectively. Pretty impressive claims for a quite small case.

Image Credits: Samsung

The buds’ design improves on the Galaxy Buds Live’s bean design, trading it for something a bit more ergonomic that’s designed to reduce the contact area between the device and the ear. Per Samsung’s claims, the ANC is capable of reducing ambient sound up to 99%. You can tweak the settings from there. They sport an 11 mm woofer and 6.5 mm tweeter, along with three microphones for calls.

There are a couple of features specifically for Samsung devices, including auto switching between phones and tablets, as well as Dolby head tracking and microphone capabilities for video recording on the Galaxy S21.

The buds are available in three colors and go up for order today. They’ll hit retail tomorrow.

News: Samsung’s Galaxy S21 line arrives with camera bumps, price drops and S Pen compatibility

• January 14, 2021
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Samsung wasted no time this year. With Mobile World Congress pushed back six or so months, the hardware maker hitched its wagon to the tail end of the CES whirlwind — though unlike its press conference earlier in the week, the company is very much on its own for the latest Unpacked. And why not?

Samsung wasted no time this year. With Mobile World Congress pushed back six or so months, the hardware maker hitched its wagon to the tail end of the CES whirlwind — though unlike its press conference earlier in the week, the company is very much on its own for the latest Unpacked.

And why not? In spite of broader issues with the mobile industry (certainly not helped by the COVID-19 pandemic), the Galaxy line is still very much a draw. People may not be as eager to buy a flagship as they were a couple of years ago, but when they do, it’s frequently a Samsung device.

I tend to save pricing for the end of these kinds of posts, but it really bears mention up front. Samsung’s launching three key iterations of the S21 line today: the S21, S21+ and S21 Ultra. Those are priced at $799, $999 and $1,119 respectively, here in the States. That’s down from $999, $1,199 and $1,399 last year. While it’s true we’re still very much in the flagship price range here, a $200 drop is not insignificant.

Image Credits: Samsung

Rather, it points to a very conscious correction — one that goes beyond simply introducing a budget flagship or flagship lite to appease that segment of the market. Smartphone sales were already lagging before the pandemic, and the routine pricing of flagships above $1,000 was a considerable piece of that. Obviously the pandemic has only exacerbated the situation for myriad reasons, and 5G, which was expected to lead to a sales rebound didn’t move the needle nearly as much as anticipated.

Of course, 5G was a headliner feature for Samsung all the way back in 2019. The company has been all-in with the Galaxy line for a while now, and frankly, the feature is just kind of expected now. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Samsung is going back to imaging as a key differentiator.

Here’s what Mobile head TM Roh has to say about the new handsets:

We are living in a mobile-first world, and with so many of us working remotely and spending more time at home, we wanted to deliver a smartphone experience that meets the rigorous multimedia demands of our continuously changing routines. We also recognize the importance of choice, especially now, and that’s why the Galaxy S21 series gives you the freedom to choose the best device for your style and needs.

I absolutely understand why companies continue to go the “in these challenging times” route with these announcements, though I will say that, for the most part, the notion of device upgrades as a response to COVID-19 is really overstated here, beyond the aforementioned price drop. And I suspect that, with fewer people leaving the house these days, the dream of a smartphone as a primary productivity device has probably dampened of late.

Image Credits: Samsung

Still, the S21 Ultra, in particular, has one very important trick up its sleeve. Samsung is further blurring the line between the Galaxy S and Note by making the Ultra S Pen compatible. The experience will vary to some degree, but users will be able to use the stylus to write and draw on the handset. It’s sold separately and there’s no in-device housing for the pen, though Samsung will be offering a case that will hold it. It will be interesting to see if the company goes out of its way to distinguish the new Note, but it seems equally possible that the lines are simply converging. After all, the S Pen has long been the key distinguishing factor.

The devices also get Ultra-wideband capabilities, which will bring a number of capabilities, including the ability to unlock car doors and AR messages to find lost items. More detail on that soon, no doubt.

Visually, the biggest change here is the camera housing, which gets streamlined. I’m holding off judgement until I see it in person, but the new “Contour Cut” housing feels a bit more brutalist or perhaps industrial than the prior generation. The device also drops the expandable memory. A strong argument could be made that current on-board storage has made microSD redundant for many or most, but it was always a nice little differentiator.

The company has also removed the headphones charging adapter from the box, a move the world saw coming when the company deleted ads ribbing Apple from dropping accessories over what it said were environmental concerns. It’s the headphone jack all over again, because history rhymes.

Hardware-wise, the triple-camera situation is similar. On the S21 and 21+ you get a 12-megapixel ultrawide, 12-megapixel wide and 64-megapixel telephoto with 30x space zoom. The Ultra bumps that up to a 12-megapixel ultra-wide, 108-megapixel wide and a dual-telephoto lens system with 3x and 10x optical zoom. That’s the first time Samsung has offered a dual-telephoto setup. The Ultra also sports improved low-light shooting, courtesy of the Bright Night sensor.

Image Credits: Samsung

Software imaging updates include the ability to pull stills from 8K shooting, improved image stabilization and new modes like “Vlogger view,” which shoots from the front and rear camera simultaneously. I see limited use for that last bit in my own life, but I’m sure folks will find a creative use for it.

The screens measure in at 6.1, 6.7 and 6.8 inches (that last one is a decrease from the S20 Ultra’s 6.9 inches). All sport a 120Hz refresh rate that adapts based on usage. The phones also get the new Eye Comfort Shield, which reduces blue light as the day goes on.

Here in the States, all three phones sport the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. The S21 and S21+ start at 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, while the Ultra starts at 12GB and 256GB. The batteries are pretty healthy, clocking in at 4000, 4800 and 5000mAh. They’re all available for pre-order now and start shipping January 29.

News: Amazon’s Ring Neighbors app exposed users’ precise locations and home addresses

• January 14, 2021
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A security flaw in Ring’s Neighbors app was exposing the precise locations and home addresses of users who had posted to the app. Ring, the video doorbell and home security startup acquired by Amazon for $1 billion, launched Neighbors in 2018 as a breakaway feature in its own standalone app. Neighbors is one of several

A security flaw in Ring’s Neighbors app was exposing the precise locations and home addresses of users who had posted to the app.

Ring, the video doorbell and home security startup acquired by Amazon for $1 billion, launched Neighbors in 2018 as a breakaway feature in its own standalone app. Neighbors is one of several neighborhood watch apps, like Nextdoor and Citizen, that lets users anonymously alert nearby residents to crime and public-safety issues.

While users’ posts are public, the app doesn’t display names or precise locations — though most include video taken by Ring doorbells and security cameras. The bug made it possible to retrieve the location data on users who posted to the app, including those who are reporting crimes.

But the exposed data wasn’t visible to anyone using the app. Rather, the bug was retrieving hidden data, including the user’s latitude and longitude and their home address, from Ring’s servers.

Another problem was that every post was tied to a unique number generated by the server that incremented by one each time a user created a new post. Although the number was hidden from view to the app user, the sequential post number made it easy to enumerate the location data from previous posts — even from users who aren’t geographically nearby.

Ring Neighbors app (left), and the data it was pulling in, including location data (right). (Image: TechCrunch)

The Neighbors app appeared to have about 4 million posts by the end of 2020.

Ring said it had fixed the issue.

“At Ring, we take customer privacy and security extremely seriously. We fixed this issue soon after we became aware of it. We have not identified any evidence of this information being accessed or used maliciously,” said Ring spokesperson Yassi Shahmiri.

Last year Gizmodo found a similar bug in the Neighbors app that revealed hidden location data, allowing them to map out thousands of Ring users across the United States.

Ring currently faces a class-action suit by dozens of people who say they were subjected to death threats and racial slurs after their Ring smart cameras were hacked. In response to the hacks, Ring put much of the blame on users for not using “best practices” like two-factor authentication, which makes it harder for hackers to access a user’s account with the user’s password.

After it emerged that hackers were reportedly creating tools to break into Ring accounts and over 1,500 user account passwords were found on the dark web, Ring made two-factor authentication mandatory for every user.

The smart tech maker has also faced increasing criticism from civil rights groups and lawmakers for its cozy relationship with hundreds of U.S. police departments that have partnered with Ring for access to homeowners’ doorbell camera footage.

News: Samsung unveils its newest Tile competitor, the Galaxy SmartTag

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Alongside its other announcements at Samsung’s event today, the company introduced its new Galaxy SmartTag Bluetooth locator, a lost item beacon for Samsung owners and a competitor with Tile. Like Tile and Apple’s forthcoming AirTags, the beacon can be attached to keys, a bag, a pet’s collar or anything else you want to track. Initially,

Alongside its other announcements at Samsung’s event today, the company introduced its new Galaxy SmartTag Bluetooth locator, a lost item beacon for Samsung owners and a competitor with Tile. Like Tile and Apple’s forthcoming AirTags, the beacon can be attached to keys, a bag, a pet’s collar or anything else you want to track. Initially, these SmartTags will use Bluetooth to communicate with a nearby Samsung device, however, the company confirmed a ultra-wideband (UWB) powered version called the SmartTag+ will arrive later this year.

The latter would allow the SmartTag to better compete with Apple’s AirTags, which are also expected to take advantage of newer iPhones’ UWB capabilities. Tile, in anticipation of this news, has already developed a UWB tracker arriving later this year, as well.

The SmartTag announced today, the Galaxy SmartTag11, will use Bluetooth and there is only one main SKU — not a range of products in different sizes or configurations. However, the tracker will be sold in two color variations: Black and Oatmeal.

The tracker works with any Galaxy device, a Samsung rep told us, as long as the device runs Android 10 or later.

Device owners can then locate the missing item with the SmartTag attached using the SmartThings Find app.

This works similar to Tile and other BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) trackers. When the SmartTag is offline — meaning, disconnected from the Galaxy S21 or other device — it sends a BLE signal that can be detected by nearby Galaxy devices. When detected, the device will send the nearby location information to the SmartThings Fine app so you can locate the item. Samsung says the SmartThings Find user data is encrypted and securely protected, so your location and personal information is safe when you lose your device and use the app to search for it.

The app will also offer a variety of locating tools, including a “Notify me when it’s found” option, as well as “Search Nearby,” “Search,” and “Ring” tools. Like Tile, you can also use a SmartTag to locate a missing phone. In this case, you push the Galaxy SmartTag button twice to receive an alert to help locate the missing phone.

The tag can also be customized to do other things when pushed once, so you could easily turn on your lights or TV when you return home, for example.

Ahead of the announcement, regulatory documents showed the tracker as a slightly chunkier version of Tile’s trackers, powered by a CR2032 cell battery, with Bluetooth connectivity. (We’ve confirmed the battery is, in fact, a user-replaceable CR2032.)

A Samsung rep could not provide us with the official and detailed tech specs for the device ahead of its announcement today, but we’ll update if the company figures it out. Unfortunately, without the confirmed details like whether the battery is user-replaceable, for example, or what the range is, it’s difficult to make a proper comparison to the existing trackers on the market. (You can’t always go off leaks alone here, either, as they aren’t always an indication of the final product. But the regulatory filings are likely a good starting point.)

To promote adoption, Samsung is giving away the new trackers pre-orders. From Jan. 14 to Jan. 28, 2021, consumers who pre-order the Galaxy S21 Ultra will get a $200 Samsung Credit plus a free Galaxy SmartTag. That could help the devices gain a little more traction, as Samsung’s previous investments in tracking gadgets, including its 2018 LTE-based SmartThings tracking fobs, never really caught on.

Outside the pre-order promotion, the SmartTags will cost $29.99 individually and will be sold starting Jan. 29th.

This is slightly steeper than Tile’s entry-level Bluetooth tracker, the Tile Mate, which retails for $24.99.

News: E2E encrypted email providers also see sign-ups surge as chat app users flock to Signal and Telegram in search of privacy

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Privacy concerns that have been driving app users to alternative chat apps like Signal and Telegram in recent weeks, since Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced a T&Cs change, appear to also be generating some uplift for end-to-end encrypted email providers. Two Europe-based Protonmail and Tutanota have reported an uptick in sign ups in recent weeks. Protonmail founder

Privacy concerns that have been driving app users to alternative chat apps like Signal and Telegram in recent weeks, since Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced a T&Cs change, appear to also be generating some uplift for end-to-end encrypted email providers.

Two Europe-based Protonmail and Tutanota have reported an uptick in sign ups in recent weeks.

Protonmail founder Andy Yen told TechCrunch it’s seen a 3x rise in sign ups for its end-to-end encrypted webmail service “in recent weeks”. While Germany’s Tutanota said usage has doubled since privacy concerns about WhatsApp’s new T&Cs sharing data with Facebook started circulating online.

“We are thrilled to see so many new users coming in. We already said in 2017 that the privacy-era has started, and we have been proven right ever since. People around the world are increasingly understanding that privacy matters and are no longer okay with fuelling the surveillance capitalism and the exploitation of their data by big tech such as Facebook. That’s why alternatives like Signal and Tutanota are constantly growing,” said Tutanota co-founder Matthias Pfau in a statement.

The fully e2e encrypted chat app Signal hasn’t disclosed how many new users it’s racked up in recent weeks but WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton — who joined forces with Signal after he left Facebook in 2018 — told us earlier this week that usage has “exploded”.

Anecdotal reports of newbies to the app — whose tagline is “say ‘hello’ to privacy” — abound.

In my case, among the UK contacts joining what had previously been a tight clique of privacy nerds, I can report a couple of ex London neighbours, an old university acquaintance, an antique Tinder date and two former colleagues — while my India-based TC colleague, Manish Singh, showed me three full screenshots of sign-ups his Signal app had alerted him to in just “the last few days”.

Telegram, another long-standing WhatsApp chat app alternative, has also reported a huge influx of new users in recent weeks.

The platform offers end-to-end encryption as an option for one-to-one chats (via its ‘Secret Chats’ feature), although unlike Signal e2e encryption is not the default rule. Nonetheless its founder, Pavel Durov, has been a very vocal critic of how Facebook treats users and their data. And that reputation baiting looks to be paying off.

“I hear Facebook has an entire department devoted to figuring out why Telegram is so popular,” Durov wrote in his Telegram Channel on January 8, seeking to capitalize on concerns about the looming WhatsApp’s T&Cs change. “Imagine dozens of employees working on just that full-time.

“I am happy to save Facebook tens of millions of dollars and give away our secret for free: respect your users,” he added.

A few days later Durov posted again to report Telegram’s user-base had surpassed 500M monthly actives in the first week of this year — adding 25M new users “in the last 72 hours alone”.

“These new users came from across the globe — 38% from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from MENA,” he went on, implying around 6% of the new sign-ups came from North America (where there have also been reports of Trump supporters turning to Telegram as an alternative channel to organize protests as mainstream social networks have closed down accounts and pages linked to threats of violence and insurrection).

“This is a significant increase compared to last year, when 1.5M new users signed up every day,” he also said, adding: “We’ve had surges of downloads before, throughout our 7-year history of protecting user privacy. But this time is different. People no longer want to exchange their privacy for free services. They no longer want to be held hostage by tech monopolies that seem to think they can get away with anything as long as their apps have a critical mass of users.”

Durov has posted another update today — saying sign ups have “only accelerated” (and welcoming a couple more heads of state to the platform).

The privacy-flavored mass migration of users to WhatsApp alternatives has pushed the Facebook-owned company to attempt a public firefight this week — over what it couches as “rumours” about the looming T&Cs changes.

A Facebook spokesperson told us there are no changes to WhatsApp’s data sharing practices anywhere in the world with this update — which they said is about providing clearer, more detailed information to users on how and why the company uses their data, and also provides information about how businesses can use WhatsApp to connect with their customers.

But Facebook’s problem is it’s spent 15+ years torching user trust around privacy. And all those broken promises are coming home to roost as users fly elsewhere — searching for a platform whose business model isn’t predicated on exploiting their attention.

Whatever the specific detail of the latest WhatsApp T&Cs change, there’s no escaping the ugly truth that Facebook is an adtech giant. And it did already screw over WhatsApp users’ privacy — when it U-turned on data-sharing with Facebook just a few short years after it shelled out $19BN to line up all those extra eyeballs for its surveillance business.

That’s why e2e encryption in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg’s advertising empire simply can’t protect users’ privacy in the same way that a not-for-profit app like Signal can. And all those ‘personalized’ Facebook features — be they stickers, filters, lens or whatever — are just a distraction from the underlying truth that Facebook makes money by removing users privacy through an interconnected mesh of apps and tools that are dedicated to tracking Internet users and linking digital activity to eyeballs.

The techie obscurity that cloaked Facebook’s surveillance for years is now steadily being unpicked. And it’s clear that plenty of people don’t at all like what they see. 

News: Google’s Fitbit acquisition is official

• January 14, 2021
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Following regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the pond, Google this morning announced that it has completed its acquisition of wearables pioneer, Fitbit. Google’s use of the vast amount of user health data has long been the key sticking point of regulatory concern of the deal. After all, targeted advertising continues to be at the

Following regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the pond, Google this morning announced that it has completed its acquisition of wearables pioneer, Fitbit. Google’s use of the vast amount of user health data has long been the key sticking point of regulatory concern of the deal. After all, targeted advertising continues to be at the heart of much of what the tech giant does.

As such, it’s unsurprising that both Google and Fitbit are looking to address concerns in their respective statements on the acquisition. Google, in particular is quick to insist that the deal is all about hardware – which has admittedly been a struggle in this particular vertical. Google’s efforts to compete with Apple in the fitness and wearable categories have been, at best, uneven.

Google SVP of Devices and Services Rick Osterloh notes,

This deal has always been about devices, not data, and we’ve been clear since the beginning that we will protect Fitbit users’ privacy. We worked with global regulators on an approach which safeguards consumers’ privacy expectations, including a series of binding commitments that confirm Fitbit users’ health and wellness data won’t be used for Google ads and this data will be separated from other Google ads data.

We’ll also maintain access to Android APIs that enable devices like fitness trackers and smart watches to interoperate with Android smartphones, and we’ll continue to allow Fitbit users to choose to connect to third-party services so you’ll still be able to sync your favorite health and fitness apps to your Fitbit account. These commitments will be implemented globally so that all consumers can benefit from them. We’ll also continue to work with regulators around the world so that they can be assured that we are living up to these commitments.

Fitbit co-founder and CEO James Park echoed the sentiment, writing,

The trust of our users will continue to be paramount, and we will maintain strong data privacy and security protections, giving you control of your data and staying transparent about what we collect and why. Google will continue to protect Fitbit users’ privacy and has made a series of binding commitments with global regulators, confirming that Fitbit users’ health and wellness data won’t be used for Google ads and this data will be kept separate from other Google ad data. Google also affirmed it will continue to allow Fitbit users to choose to connect to third party services.

The levels and intimacy of data collected by these sorts of consumer devices has increased significantly over the past decade. Adding fuel to that fire is the push from companies like Fitbit and Apple to have their products taken more seriously as medical devices — or at least medically adjacent. Both companies have commissioned health studies, sought FDA clearance and worked with insurance companies. This push will no doubt only intensify.

The $2.1 billion deal’s completion comes with a number of concessions The EU in particular presented a number of caveats when it finally greenlit the acquisition last month. It noted at the time, “The commitments will determine how Google can use the data collected for ad purposes, how interoperability between competing wearables and Android will be safeguarded and how users can continue to share health and fitness data, if they choose to.”

As part of the deal, Google agreed to not use Fitbit data for ads for 10 years — which the Commission reserved the rights to extend by another 10 years. Google also agreed to maintain third-party developer access to Android APIs, in order to maintain some competition.

Founded in 2007, Fitbit became synonymous with the wearable fitness tracker space. Ultimately, however, the company struggled to maintain dominance with the arrival of the smartwatch, eventually ceding significant marketshare to the Apple Watch. The company eventually made headway in the category with devices like the Versa, but by then it was seemingly too late to continue on its own.

The deal certainly makes sense for Google, given its continued struggles to make a dent with Android Wear/wear OS. With Fitbit, the company’s getting an established hardware maker. It’s not entirely dissimilar from its purchase of HTC assets to help grow the Pixel line of phones, though there’s still enough cache in the Fitbit brand to keep it alive. Notably, Fitbit’s own growth in the smartwatch space was spurred on by several of its own acquisitions, including smartwatch pioneer and crowdfunding darling, Pebble.

In late 2019, Google also acquired Timex smartwatch technology for $40 million, making it extremely likely that the company will be taking on the Apple Watch directly. Understandably so, the product has not only been a massive hit for Apple, it’s opened the door to all sorts of health offerings, including the recently launched Fitness+. If this year’s CES proved anything, it’s that home workouts are a huge business with lots of upside, with even Samsung getting into the act.