UK class action lodged against Meta seeks $3.1B for breach of competition law

A competition legal expert, backed by a powerful litigation fund, is set to mount a multibillion-dollar class action suit against Facebook/Meta for breach of competition law on the basis that it abused its dominance of social networking in the U.K. for several years. If successful, the action would see Facebook having to pay $3.1 billion […]

Music app AmpMe lowers pricing after accused of being an App Store scammer

Around the same time Apple was touting its sizable App Store revenue growth this week, developer and noted App Store critic Kosta Eleftheriou brought to light what appeared to be yet another App Store scammer hiding in plain sight. On Twitter, Eleftheriou documented the earnings for a music syncing app called AmpMe, which claims to […]

Twitter Spaces continues testing podcast-like features

Twitter has been working on Spaces Recordings, a feature that will let hosts share tweets with audio recordings of past Spaces. Now, when hosts share the recordings, they’re able to see how many listeners joined live, as well as how many people replayed the recording after the fact. we’ve been working on Spaces Recordings and […]

Amazon expands its Sidewalk IoT network with an enterprise-grade bridge

Back in 2019, Amazon first announced its Sidewalk network, a new low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol and network for connecting smart devices — and keeping them online when your own WiFi network, for example, goes down, by piggybacking on your neighbor’s network. Since last year, Amazon has been turning its Echo devices into Sidewalk bridges and […]

Tumblr is at war with Apple over ‘mature’ content on its app again

Hide your “Tony the Tiger”/”Eugene Levy” fan fiction — those phrases, along with hundreds of others, are now banned from Tumblr’s iOS app. Now, any personal blog that flags itself as “mature” is not accessible on the iOS app — users will see a pop-up explaining that the content has been hidden because of “potentially […]

Amazon fixes its broken Appstore on Android 12 devices, which caused issues with apps launching

Amazon says it has fixed an issue with its Amazon Appstore that was causing issues with app launches for customers who had upgraded to Android 12 on their mobile devices. Earlier this month, reports began to circulate that Amazon’s Appstore was still not functional on Android 12 following its fall release. Users reported that not […]

Spotify is launching Apple-like ratings for podcasts

If you’ve ever listened to a podcast, you’ve probably heard a host ask you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts in their end credits. Now, that script might flip to “leave a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.” Spotify announced today that it’s implementing a five-star rating system, similar to Apple’s, in an attempt […]

Apple quietly pulls references to its CSAM detection tech after privacy fears

Apple has quietly removed all references to its child sexual abuse scanning feature from its website, months after announcing that the new technology would be baked into iOS 15 and macOS Monterey. Back in August, Apple announced that it would introduce the feature to allow the company to detect and report known child sexual abuse […]

Facebook’s new website lets fans buy ‘Stars’ without paying the app stores’ commissions

Meta (formerly Facebook) has found a new way to avoid the app stores’ commissions on in-app purchases with the launch of a new website where people can buy “Stars” — the virtual items that allow fans to express their support for favorite creators during Facebook videos and livestreams. Typically, Stars are bought as in-app purchases […]