Who will be liable for harmful speech generated by large language models? As advanced AIs such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 are being cheered for impressive breakthroughs in natural language processing and generation — and all sorts of (productive) applications for the tech are envisaged from slicker copywriting to more capable customer service chatbots — the risks of such powerful text-generating tools inadvertently automating abuse and spreading smears can’t be ignored. Nor can the risk of bad actors intentionally weaponizing the tech to spread chaos, scale harm and watch the world burn.

Indeed, OpenAI is concerned enough about the risks of its models going “totally off the rails,” as its documentation puts it at one point (in reference to a response example in which an abusive customer input is met with a very troll-esque AI reply), to offer a free content filter that “aims to detect generated text that could be sensitive or unsafe coming from the API” — and to recommend that users don’t return any generated text that the filter deems “unsafe.” (To be clear, its documentation defines “unsafe” to mean “the text contains profane language, prejudiced or hateful language, something that could be NSFW or text that portrays certain groups/people in a harmful manner.”).

But, given the novel nature of the technology, there are no clear legal requirements that content filters must be applied. So OpenAI is either acting out of concern to avoid its models causing generative harms to people — and/or reputational concern — because if the technology gets associated with instant toxicity that could derail development.

Just recall Microsoft’s ill-fated Tay AI Twitter chatbot — which launched back in March 2016 to plenty of fanfare, with the company’s research team calling it an experiment in “conversational understanding.” Yet it took less than a day to have its plug yanked by Microsoft after web users ‘taught’ the bot to spout racist, antisemitic and misogynistic hate tropes. So it ended up a different kind of experiment: In how online culture can conduct and amplify the worst impulses humans can have.

The same sorts of bottom-feeding internet content has been sucked into today’s large language models — because AI model builders have crawled all over the internet to obtain the massive corpuses of free text they need to train and dial up their language generating capabilities. (For example, per Wikipedia, 60% of the weighted pre-training dataset for OpenAI’s GPT-3 came from a filtered version of Common Crawl — aka a free dataset comprised of scraped web data.) Which means these far more powerful large language models can, nonetheless, slip into sarcastic trolling and worse.

European policymakers are barely grappling with how to regulate online harms in current contexts like algorithmically sorted social media platforms, where most of the speech can at least be traced back to a human — let alone considering how AI-powered text generation could supercharge the problem of online toxicity while creating novel quandaries around liability.

And without clear liability it’s likely to be harder to prevent AI systems from being used to scale linguistic harms.

Take defamation. The law is already facing challenges with responding to automatically generated content that’s simply wrong.

Security research Marcus Hutchins took to TikTok a few months back to show his follows how he’s being “bullied by Google’s AI,” as he put it. In a remarkably chipper clip, considering he’s explaining a Kafka-esque nightmare in which one of the world’s most valuable companies continually publishes a defamatory suggestion about him, Hutchins explains that if you google his name the search engine results page (SERP) it returns includes an automatically generated Q&A — in which Google erroneously states that Hutchins made the WannaCry virus.

Hutchins is actually famous for stopping WannaCry. Yet Google’s AI has grasped the wrong end of the stick on this not-at-all-tricky to distinguish essential difference — and, seemingly, keeps getting it wrong. Repeatedly. (Presumably because so many online articles cite Hutchins’ name in the same span of text as referencing ‘WannaCry’ — but that’s because he’s the guy who stopped the global ransomeware attack from being even worse than it was. So this is some real artificial stupidity in action by Google.)

To the point where Hutchins says he’s all but given up trying to get the company to stop defaming him by fixing its misfiring AI.

“The main problem that’s made this so hard is while raising enough noise on Twitter got a couple of the issues fixed, since the whole system is automated it just adds more later and it’s like playing whack-a-mole,” Hutchins told TechCrunch. “It’s got to the point where I can’t justify raising the issue anymore because I just sound like a broken record and people get annoyed.”

In the months since we asked Google about this erroneous SERP the Q&A it associates with Hutchins has shifted — so instead of asking “What virus did Marcus Hutchins make?” — and surfacing a one word (incorrect) answer directly below: “WannaCry,” before offering the (correct) context in a longer snippet of text sourced from a news article, as it was in April, a search for Hutchins’ name now results in Google displaying the question “Who created WannaCry” (see screengrab below). But it now just fails to answer its own question — as the snippet of text it displays below only talks about Hutchins stopping the spread of the virus.

Image Credits: Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch (screengrab)

So Google has — we must assume — tweaked how the AI displays the Q&A format for this SERP. But in doing that it’s broken the format (because the question it poses is never answered).

Moreover, the misleading presentation which pairs the question “Who created WannaCry?” with a search for Hutchins’ name, could still lead a web user who quickly skims the text Google displays after the question to wrongly believe he is being named as the author of the virus. So it’s not clear it’s much/any improvement on what was being automatically generated before.

In earlier remarks to TechCrunch, Hutchins also made the point that the context of the question itself, as well as the way the result gets featured by Google, can create the misleading impression he made the virus — adding: “It’s unlikely someone googling for say a school project is going to read the whole article when they feel like the answer is right there.”

He also connects Google’s automatically generated text to direct, personal harm, telling us: “Ever since google started featuring these SERPs, I’ve gotten a huge spike in hate comments and even threats based on me creating WannaCry. The timing of my legal case gives the impression that the FBI suspected me but a quick [Google search] would confirm that’s not the case. Now there’s all kinds of SERP results which imply I did, confirming the searcher’s suspicious and it’s caused rather a lot of damage to me.”

Asked for a response to his complaint, Google sent us this statement attributed to a spokesperson:

The queries in this feature are generated automatically and are meant to highlight other common related searches. We have systems in place to prevent incorrect or unhelpful content from appearing in this feature. Generally, our systems work well, but they do not have a perfect understanding of human language. When we become aware of content in Search features that violates our policies, we take swift action, as we did in this case.

The tech giant did not respond to follow-up questions pointing out that its “action” keeps failing to address Hutchins’ complaint.

This is of course just one example — but it looks instructive that an individual, with a relatively large online presence and platform to amplify his complaints about Google’s ‘bullying AI,’ literally cannot stop the company from applying automation technology that keeps surfacing and repeating defamatory suggestions about him.

In his TikTok video, Hutchins suggests there’s no recourse for suing Google over the issue in the US — saying that’s “essentially because the AI is not legally a person no one is legally liable; it can’t be considered libel or slander.”

Libel law varies depending on the country where you file a complaint. And it’s possible Hutchins would have a better chance of getting a court-ordered fix for this SERP if he filed a complaint in certain European markets such as Germany — where Google has previously been sued for defamation over autocomplete search suggestions (albeit the outcome of that legal action, by Bettina Wulff, is less clear but it appears that the claimed false autocomplete suggestions she had complained were being linked to her name by Google’s tech did get fixed) — rather than in the U.S., where Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides general immunity for platforms from liability for third-party content.

Although, in the Hutchins SERP case, the question of whose content this is, exactly, is one key consideration. Google would probably argue its AI is just reflecting what others have previously published — ergo, the Q&A should be wrapped in Section 230 immunity. But it might be possible to (counter) argue that the AI’s selection and presentation of text amounts to a substantial remixing which means that speech — or, at least, context — is actually being generated by Google. So should the tech giant really enjoy protection from liability for its AI-generated textual arrangement?

For large language models, it will surely get harder for model makers to dispute that their AIs are generating speech. But individual complaints and lawsuits don’t look like a scalable fix for what could, potentially, become massively scaled automated defamation (and abuse) — thanks to the increased power of these large language models and expanding access as APIs are opened up.

Regulators are going to need to grapple with this issue — and with where liability lies for communications that are generated by AIs. Which means grappling with the complexity of apportioning liability, given how many entities may be involved in applying and iterating large language models, and shaping and distributing the outputs of these AI systems.

In the European Union, regional lawmakers are ahead of the regulatory curve as they are currently working to hash out the details of a risk-based framework the Commission proposed last year to set rules for certain applications of artificial intelligence to try to ensure that highly scalable automation technologies are applied in a way that’s safe and non-discriminatory.

But it’s not clear that the EU’s AI Act — as drafted — would offer adequate checks and balances on malicious and/or reckless applications of large language models as they are classed as general purpose AI systems that were excluded from the original Commission draft.

The Act itself sets out a framework that defines a limited set of “high risk” categories of AI application, such as employment, law enforcement, biometric ID etc, where providers have the highest level of compliance requirements. But a downstream applier of a large language model’s output — who’s likely relying on an API to pipe the capability into their particular domain use case — is unlikely to have the necessary access (to training data, etc.) to be able to understand the model’s robustness or risks it might pose; or to make changes to mitigate any problems they encounter, such as by retraining the model with different datasets.  

Legal experts and civil society groups in Europe have raised concerns over this carve out for general purpose AIs. And over a more recent partial compromise text that’s emerged during co-legislator discussions has proposed including an article on general purpose AI systems. But, writing in Euroactiv last month, two civil society groups warned the suggested compromise would create a continued carve-out for the makers of general purpose AIs — by putting all the responsibility on deployers who make use of systems whose workings they’re not, by default, privy to.

“Many data governance requirements, particularly bias monitoring, detection and correction, require access to the datasets on which AI systems are trained. These datasets, however, are in the possession of the developers and not of the user, who puts the general purpose AI system ‘into service for an intended purpose.’ For users of these systems, therefore, it simply will not be possible to fulfil these data governance requirements,” they warned.

One legal expert we spoke to about this, the internet law academic Lilian Edwards — who has previously critiqued a number of limitations of the EU framework — said the proposals to introduce some requirements on providers of large, upstream general-purpose AI systems are a step forward. But she suggested enforcement looks difficult. And while she welcomed the proposal to add a requirement that providers of AI systems such as large language models must “cooperate with and provide the necessary information” to downstream deployers, per the latest compromise text, she pointed out that an exemption has also been suggested for IP rights or confidential business information/trade secrets — which risks fatally undermining the entire duty.

So, TL;DR: Even Europe’s flagship framework for regulating applications of artificial intelligence still has a way to go to latch onto the cutting edge of AI — which it must do if it’s to live up to the hype as a claimed blueprint for trustworthy, respectful, human-centric AI. Otherwise a pipeline of tech-accelerated harms looks all but inevitable — providing limitless fuel for the online culture wars (spam levels of push-button trolling, abuse, hate speech, disinformation!) — and setting up a bleak future where targeted individuals and groups are left firefighting a never-ending flow of hate and lies. Which would be the opposite of fair.

The EU had made much of the speed of its digital lawmaking in recent years but the bloc’s legislators must think outside the box of existing product rules when it comes to AI systems if they’re to put meaningful guardrails on rapidly evolving automation technologies and avoid loopholes that let major players keep sidestepping their societal responsibilities. No one should get a pass for automating harm — no matter where in the chain a ‘black box’ learning system sits, nor how large or small the user — else it’ll be us humans left holding a dark mirror.

Google Duo, the company’s video chat service for consumers, will soon merge with Google Meet, the company’s video chat service for business users.

The Duo app will soon get all of Meet’s features, including scheduled calls, and then, once the transition is complete, change its name to Google Meet. At that point, the current Meet app will simply launch the new Duo/Meet app. It’s a bit complicated, but to be fair, moving millions of users to the new platform was always going to be a heavy lift.

All of this isn’t a major surprise, given that Google has already sunset Allo, Duo’s chat-focused sibling. Both launched to a bit of confusion in 2016, as Google already offered a bunch of text and video chat options at the time. Now Google is finally consolidating most of these under the Chat and Meet brands.

Image Credits: Google

Javier Soltero, Google’s GM and VP, told me that this move has been in the making for quite a while. Back in 2020, the company brought the Duo and Meet teams together with the goal of collapsing these two products into one. “We think it’s incredibly important and strategically critical for Google to be able to serve the full breadth of the video market, from consumer use all the way to organizational and commercial use with a common service platform and a product whose user experience is guided by the same sense of simplicity and intuitiveness,” he explained.

Dave Citron, the director of product management for these products, also noted that as the pandemic hit, both Duo and Meet suddenly saw their usage increase rapidly and found a new kind of product-market fit. That led the teams to look for ways to iterate more quickly. “The great thing about bringing the teams together is that we’ve brought some of the best of both products to each other, strengthened the foundation and…it’s now fairly straightforward because of the work we’ve done over the last few years to take that final step and actually bring them fully together,” Citron explained.

Image Credits: Google

Over the course of the last few years, Google actually brought a number of Duo features to Meet, and now the Duo app will soon get all of Meet’s features, including scheduled meetings. This will happen over the next few weeks, though Soltero and Citron noted that Google will take a very measured approach here and monitor its metrics for potential issues and slow the process down to fix bugs, if necessary.

It’s no secret that, originally, Duo and Allo were meant to become the consumer-centric versions of the more business-focused Google Chat and Meet. But that’s clearly not what consumers wanted — especially in the case of Allo — and if anything, the pandemic helped collapse the difference between people’s work and private lives even faster than anybody could have anticipated. Google’s colleagues at Microsoft saw the writing on the wall when they launched a personal version of Teams.

Citron stressed that the overall idea here is to not leave any users behind. Duo’s users should be able to continue to use the app — even if the name changes — just like before. If they don’t want to schedule meetings, they won’t have to (but both Citron and Soltero noted that more consumers than ever are now also scheduling personal meetings). Likewise, Meet users will be able to continue to use the app for their scheduled meetings but they will now also gain the option to have ad hoc calls with their contacts without having to go through the process of setting up a call. And those of you who are using Duo on a Nest Hub Max or similar smart speaker (or even a TV) today will be able to continue doing so going forward, too.

In a way, it’s almost surprising that it took Google this long, especially given that at its core, both Duo and Meet use the same open WebRTC standard. If anything, the existence of Duo in parallel with Meet created a bit of confusion among consumers, especially as Google opened up Meet to everybody during the pandemic. Making users choose between two different tools for related use cases isn’t something that’s easy to explain and Soltero admitted as much.

“Part of this is also motivated by something that we’ve always known as true and that is: it doesn’t matter how many tools you have — and communication tools in particular — if you’re not great at allowing people to make the right choices for the right circumstance — then you’re not really making the world a better place, right?… People just still in this day and age — and certainly through the course of the pandemic — are not necessarily better at understanding intuitively what tool to use for what circumstance,” he said. Google, he argued, has the ability to approach this problem by giving users that choice based on how addressable somebody is at a given time and to look people up using phone numbers or email addresses, for example.

Some of this may feel like Google is looking for reasons for this move after the fact, but most importantly, this chapter of Google’s video chat confusion is finally coming to an end, and to me, a combined Meet/Duo app simply makes sense and may get me to use the platform more often for ad hoc meetings. Now for Google Hangouts…

As expected, the Broadcom-VMware deal is a go. The chip giant intends to snap up the virtualization software company for $61 billion in cash and stock, along with taking on $8 billion in VMware debt.

It’s not an inexpensive transaction, but thanks to a “go-shop” provision that gives VMware 40 days to “solicit, receive, evaluate and potentially enter negotiations with parties that offer alternative proposals,” there’s market speculation that another bidder could enter the fray.

After chewing through analyst notes on the deal, Ron and Alex wound up on opposite sides regarding whether a higher price or another bidder would make sense. Ron’s view is that the company’s value is higher than its recent financial results may imply, while Alex feels the company is not sufficiently performative to deserve a higher price.

TechCrunch+ is having a Memorial Day sale. You can save 50% on annual subscriptions for a limited time.

We’ve long speculated who might buy VMware, and after Dell spun out the company, TechCrunch listed Amazon, Alphabet, Oracle, Microsoft and IBM as potential acquirers. The fact that we did not foresee Broadcom as a potential suitor underscores our view that we don’t fully grok if it’s the correct buyer for VMware.

So let’s talk about the pros and cons of the matter, ask what VMware is worth, and how it may have value over and above its recent quarterly results. Ron is taking point!

Ron’s take:

With $61 billion on the table, it’s hard to imagine anyone paying more, and research firm Bernstein agrees with the perspective. Before we put the idea to bed, though, it’s worth taking a moment to think about the value of VMware.

VMware’s value goes beyond what its balance sheet or its profit and loss statement tells us at the moment. While the company might not have had a perfect first quarter, it has a particular set of skills that could fit nicely with any of the big cloud infrastructure providers.

In fact, cloud infrastructure-as-a-service exists today only because the early crew at VMware figured out virtualization at scale in the early 2000s. Until then, people used servers, and if a server was underutilized, well, too bad. Virtualization lets you divide a computer into multiple virtual machines, paving the way for cloud computing as we know it today.

While cloud computing has changed some since its early days, virtualization remains a core tenet of the market. Imagine for a moment if one of the three or four cloud vendors — think Amazon, Microsoft, Google or even IBM (although this deal is a bit rich for its blood) — brought VMware into its fold.

VMware brings more to the table than virtualization, of course. Over the years, it has gained various capabilities by acquiring companies like Heptio, a containerization startup launched by Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda, two of the people who helped create Kubernetes.

Hey all. Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we recap some of the top stories to cross TC’s front page over the last 7 days.

The most read story on our site this week was about Flowcarbon — a new company and “blockchain-based redemption story” (as Anita put it) launched by WeWork founder Adam Neumann. The goal, writes Anita, is to “sell tokenized carbon credits to companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint,” to which the only response I can think of is that Jennifer Lawrence “ok” gif.

Why is it on the blockchain? What’s a “Goddess Nature Token”? Find out in Anita’s post here, then listen to Lucas and Anita go deep on the topic on this week’s Chain Reaction podcast.

other stuff

Here are some of the other most read TC stories from this week:

Jack Dorsey steps down from Twitter’s board: For the first time since its founding in 2006, co-founder Jack Dorsey is no longer officially involved in the operation of Twitter. Late last year, he stepped away from the CEO role but remained on the company’s board of directors. As of May 25, he has exited the board as well.

Broadcom will buy VMware for a massive $61B: After a few days of rumors, Broadcom announced its plans to acquire VMware for a wild $61 billion. Ron’s got all the details of the deal — and as for why the chipmaker would drop that much on the virtualization company? Ron and Alex have you covered there, too.

Take-Two buys Zynga: The parent company behind games like Grand Theft Auto and BioShock now owns the company behind games like FarmVille and Words With Friends. We’ve known for a while that this was in the works, but the $12.7 billion deal was all finalized this week.

More tech layoffs: Another week of companies announcing or confirming layoffs — including cuts at Klarna, PayPal and grocery delivery companies Getir and Gorillas.

Google’s answer to DALL-E: Just last month, OpenAI showed off “DALL-E 2” — its AI model capable of taking a text prompt like “Shiba Inu wearing a beret” and generating an entirely new image from it. Now Google says they’ve got their own algorithm that’s even better — but, outside of comparison images Google provides (which, naturally, include more Shiba Inu in hats), we’ll have to take the company’s word for it. Citing “potential risks of misuse,” Google isn’t currently releasing any code or public demos.

Image Credits: Google Research

added things

We have a paywalled section of our site called TechCrunch+. It only costs a few bucks a month and it’s full of very good stuff! From this week, for example:

Know your potential investor’s thesis: Got a solid business and a polished pitch deck, but still getting turned down by investors? “A lot of the time, it doesn’t matter how good your company is,” writes Haje. “What matters is whether it matches up with your investor’s investment thesis.”

U.S. cannabis investors on why they’re planting seeds now: Recreational cannabis use is slowly becoming legal in more and more states — but it’s still illegal at a federal level, which deeply complicates things when it’s the core of your business. Anna Heim checked in with four U.S. cannabis investors for their thoughts on the state of the industry, and what’s keeping it from really catching fire.

It’s not business as usual (and investors are admitting it): After Y Combinator’s memo suggesting founders “plan for the worst” in the months ahead, investors are echoing that sentiment in memos of their own. Natasha Mascarenhas takes a look at memos from Reach Capital, Lightspeed ventures and more.

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion.

Today’s consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated over $100 million in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend, and just eight apps topped $1 billion.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps to try, too.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Top Stories

Web3 apps are growing

Image Credits: Apptopia

A report from Apptopia has found the number of mobile applications describing themselves as “web3” apps has continued to grow from 2020 through 2022. So far this year, the number of web3 apps available for download is growing nearly 5x faster compared with 2021, and year-to-date, the number of apps available for download is up by 88%.

The firm analyzed data across the App Store and Google play, looking for any apps with “web3” in the title, subtitle or app description. Many of these apps — around 46% — were those in the finance space. This has to do with the large number of mobile wallets, NFT apps and the like now crowding the app stores. Much smaller percentages were found in apps in the social, tools/utilities, business and gaming categories.

However, despite the growth in the availability of web3 apps, the number of downloads the apps are seeing seems to ebb and flow, Apptopia noted. In addition, it found that NFT marketplace apps OpenSea and Veve were down 90%+ off their highs, and the top 50 crypto apps have seen downloads fall 64% since November. Meanwhile, web3 apps seeing growth currently include the circular economy app Twig and running app STEPN, which lets users collect NFTs by running outdoors.

Never-ending Twitter deal drama

In what’s becoming a regular occurrence, it was another tumultuous week for the deal that would see Elon Musk acquire Twitter.

This week, Musk decided to put up more of his own money for Twitter — just days after it looked like the tech exec was trying to get out of the deal by alleging Twitter lied about the percentage of bots on the platform. In a filing, Musk said his personal financial commitment was now $33.5 billion, up from $27.25 billion. The Telsa and SpaceX exec had previously said he would execute a margin loan of $12.5 billion against his other holdings, like his Tesla shares. But Tesla shares had seen a sharp decline after news of Musk’s acquisition plans for Twitter back in April, potentially prompting this move.

If you’re sick of all the deal shenanigans, you’re not alone. A group of Twitter shareholders has now sued Musk, alleging he manipulated Twitter stock for his own benefit throughout the course of buying the company.

The suit says Musk’s complaint about the percentage of bots on the platform was likely an attempt to drive down the price of the deal. It also cites issues with how he claimed the deal was “on hold,” when there was no such mechanism in place to stop the deal from proceeding; and it points out that Musk delayed filing a disclosure when his stake in the company exceeded 5%, allowing him to buy shares at a discount, in violation of securities law.

While a select group of Twitter investors is behind the lawsuit, it’s open to any shareholders who are looking to receive financial compensation from the Twitter chaos the deal has caused.

Musk’s move to buy Twitter is certainly shaking things up. This week former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey exited the board of directors. And, at Wednesday’s shareholder meeting, the board voted to oust board member — and Musk ally — Egon Durban, CEO of private equity firm Silver Lake. Durban has backed Musk’s companies, including SolarCity, before it was acquired by Tesla. The FT pointed out that the two biggest shareholder advisers, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, cited concerns with Durban serving on too many other boards. (The FT said he was on seven this year, but a Twitter SEC filing said it was six.)

Twitter then rejected Durban’s resignation, two days after shareholders had blocked his re-election. The company said that Durban likely failed to receive shareholder support because of his director role on so many other boards (six), but Durban had agreed to reduce the number to five by May 25, 2023.

Also during the shareholder meeting, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal faced a number of questions about the deal, what it means for free speech on Twitter, content moderation and other issues. But Twitter declined to answer questions about the deal and said work at Twitter was continuing as usual. (Which hardly seems true, given the string of firings and exec departures following Dorsey’s exit and Musk’s takeover attempt!).

Twitter’s troubles also extended beyond the acquisition, as this week Twitter also agreed to pay a $150 million fine as part of its settlement with regulators over user data privacy. The FTC and Department of Justice said that between May 2013 and September 2019, Twitter asked users for personal information — including phone numbers and emails — to secure their accounts, but then used that information to target users with ads. More than 140 million Twitter users were impacted, the FTC said.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

Image Credits: Apple

• Apple’s latest research suggested the iOS app economy supports 2.2 million U.S. jobs. Apple shared two more new research reports this week, both of which were meant to demonstrate how successful the app economy has been under its reign. The company commissioned two outside firms to produce analysis related to job growth and earnings in the iOS developer community. Apple said revenue for small developers on the App Store in 2019 increased by 113% over the past two years, outpacing the earnings growth of larger developers by more than 2x. In the U.S., smaller developers saw a 118% increase in earnings since 2019. It defined small developers as having under $1 million in billions and fewer than 1 million downloads.
• Apple informed developers that starting on June 30, 2022, all App Store apps that offer account creation must also offer an in-app option to allow their users to delete their accounts. The deadline had been pushed a couple of times previously, and takes particular aim at many of Apple’s rivals, like Facebook or Match, which offer cumbersome and obfuscated processes for account deletions.
• Apple released iOS 15.5.1 with iPhone-to-iPhone contactless payments.

Platforms: Google

• Google’s automated enforcement of its Play Store policies has angered the developer of email app FairEmail, which has over 500,000 downloads. The app was flagged as spyware because it uploads user contacts, although the real issue could be something else and the wording in Google’s response wasn’t clear. Fed up, the developer said he was going to stop working on his apps altogether. After press coverage, however, he was able to talk to Google by phone and the app is being restored.

E-commerce

• EBay launched its first collection of NFTs in partnership with web3 platform OneOf. Its new “Genesis” NFT Collection features 3D and animated interpretations of athletes featured on Sports Illustrated covers over the years.
• Instacart revamped its ratings. The shopping app’s new customer ratings system aims to address shopper complaints about customers who continually abuse the system unfairly. Instacart says it will now remove ratings from customers who consistently rate their shoppers below five (5) stars. Instacart is also going to forgive ratings for reasons that may be outside of a shopper’s control and will allow shoppers to block rude customers so they won’t be paired with them again. And when customers remove tips without reporting problems, Instacart will pay out at least $10. The shoppers’ app will also now show a “Your Stats” screen with details like their average customer rating, customer feedback and statistics, like how many orders they’ve completed. Shoppers have to keep a 4.7 star rating to get prioritized for batches.

Augmented Reality

Image Credits: Niantic

• At its Lightship AR developer conference, Niantic unveiled Campfire, a social app for the “real-world metaverse” that helps Niantic gamers discover new people, places and experiences across the company’s apps.
• Niantic also introduced other AR developments at its event, most notably, its new Lightship Visual Positioning System (VPS) — a way for developers to determine the position and orientation of users and anchor AR content. The company has been quietly building out VPS, and there are now more than 30,000 VPS-activated public locations already available — most of which are in San Francisco, London, Tokyo, LA, New York and Seattle. Plus, its WebAR development platform 8th Wall added a new pricing tier for creators.
• Niantic also revealed its investment in Pixelynx, makers of a mobile game called Elynxir from musicians deadmau5 and Plastikman, which is like a music-filled take on AR games like Niantic’s own Pokémon GO. It also backed XR wellness app Tripp, a VPS partner.
• As part of Snap’s partnership with Live Nation, the Snapchat maker teamed up with Insomniac Events to bring Snap’s technology to Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas. The event brings festival-goers four new EDC Snapchat Lenses, including a Night Owl Lens; Daily Lens; AR Compass; and a Friend FindAR Lens (beta). The latter works to help users find their friends if everyone has location-sharing enabled.

Image Credits: Snap

Fintech

• PayPal laid off 83 employees from its San Jose headquarters around a week before the company said it was closing its San Francisco office. The company didn’t offer further details, but said it remains committed to the Bay Area and will continue to hire.
• Apple’s new “Tap to Pay” contactless payments feature rolled out to Apple Stores nationwide. The feature allows users to make a payment without any extra hardware involved.

Social

Image Credits: TikTok

• TikTok ramped up its competition with Twitch, YouTube and others with the launch of TikTok LIVE subscriptions, a new program that will allow creators to generate recurring revenue via payments from their top fans. Similar to the offerings from rival streaming sites, the new service will offer subscribers a range of perks, including subscriber-only chat, custom emotes, badges and more. Based on early reports, the subscriptions cost $5.99/mo and involves a 50/50 rev share, though that could still change.
• Snapchat’s Family Center parental controls were spotted under development. The feature will allow parents to see who their teen is friends with on the app as well as who they’ve been messaging with over the past seven days, and more. However, it won’t give parents insight into what teens are saying in messages or posting to their own accounts, or allow them to restrict access to various parts of the Snapchat experience.

Image Credits: Snapchat screenshot via Watchful

• Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel warned employees this week that the company would miss its Q2 revenue and earnings targets as its growth had weakened. The company said it would slow hiring, as well. Snap cited the overall economic environment as contributing to the slowdown, including inflation and the Russia-Ukraine war. It also suggested the iOS privacy change continues to impact the company’s revenues. The stock tanked as a result.
• Twitter updated its API (v2) to give third-party app developers the ability to access the same reverse chronological timeline that’s available today in Twitter’s own app.
• Instagram gave its app a visual refresh with a brighter logo, typeface (“Instagram Sans,” inspired by its logo and its “squircles”) and full-screen marketing layouts. The new logo’s gradient, meanwhile, is meant to be more vibrant and features a touch of blueish-purple, likely meant to recall the app’s connection to Facebook.

Image Credits: Instagram

• A Rest of World case study of India’s Koo, a Twitter alternative, highlights the potential pitfalls with the introduction of a self-verification system (as Elon Musk wants for Twitter). In Koo’s case, the system is technically optional, but leverages Aadhaar — a verification system that’s supposed to be voluntary but had proved to be otherwise. Those without Aadhaar verification had not been able to access services like mobile connections, education, banking and pensions.
• YouTube Shorts began rolling out ads globally. The TikTok rival had been experimenting with ads since last year, and now offers both video action campaigns and app campaign ads.
• ByteDance rival Kuaishou, maker of China’s second-largest short video platform, reported Q1 revenue up 24% year-over-year to ~$3.2 billion, versus ~$3.1 billion estimated, and a ~$939 million net loss, down 89% year-over-year from ~$8.7 billion. The company now has 346 million DAUs, up 17%  from 295 million a year ago.
• TikTok extended its Marketing Partner Program to allow marketers to manage their TikTok accounts without leaving their third-party content marketing platforms. The short-form video app is partnering with Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Sprinklr, Emplifi, Dash Hudson, Khoros, Brandwatch and Later for the initial launch.

Messaging

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

• New data indicates more than half (55%) of WhatsApp’s audience is using the app every day, up from 39% a year ago, per Sensor Tower. The firm found that both WhatsApp and Telegram saw a spike in engagement by MAUs in February due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Q1 2022, Telegram saw 15.5% of its MAUs open the app each day, up from 9% in Q1 2021.
• WhatsApp said it will no longer work with iPhones running iOS 10 and iOS 11 starting later this year, as it aims to focus development only on newer versions of Apple’s mobile operating system.

Photos

• Google Photos began rolling out its new “Real Tone” filters on Android, iOS and the web this week. The filters are found in the Filters tab in Google Photos’ image editor and were designed by professional image-makers to work across skin tones.

Dating

• Bumble is preparing to expand further into social networking with a new communities feature inside its flagship dating app. The feature will be a part of its BFF offering and is already in alpha testing, the company said. Many of the communities are female-focused, with social groups that allow women to chat about topics like student life, mentoring, parenting, work and more.

Image Credits: Bumble screenshot via Watchful

Streaming & Entertainment

• Spotify is again hosting political ads on podcasts after pausing them in early 2020, as it says it has strengthened its advertiser verification system.
• Spotify also said its new “call-to-action” clickable ads were expanding to Australia, Canada and the U.K., after their U.S. launch in January. The ads display during a podcast’s ad break and can later be located on the podcast’s page.
• Apple Music became available in Google’s navigation app, Waze, which had already supported rival Spotify, Audible and other streaming services.

Gaming

Image Credits: data.ai

• Data.ai (formerly App Annie) released a new games report with IDC, which found that mobile gaming is poised to take over 60% of the market share in 2022 — 3.2x the size of the next largest form factor, console gaming. The mobile gaming market itself will top $136 billion in 2022. Mobile gaming reaches a wide demographic, it found, with 47% of the top 1,000 grossing mobile games skewing toward Gen Z in the U.S., while the Gen X and Baby Boomer generations, combined, was the fastest group for mobile game spending. U.S. mobile gamers also generally prefer to see ads in exchange for free content by a 3:1 margin.
• Roblox hired former Zynga CTO Nick Tornow as its new VP of Engineering. Tornow will help to shape the platform for its 50 million daily active users, including in areas like real-time translation, and other areas.
• Sony said it will shift more than half (55%) of its development budget to its live game service over the next three users, aided by Sony Interactive Entertainment’s acquisition of Destiny maker Bungie for $3.6 billion. The company will leverage Bungie’s expertise to build out a portfolio of 12 live game service franchises by its 2025 fiscal year, up from one in 2021, it told investors. It also forecast significant growth of PC and mobile games within its portfolio.

Image Credits: Sony (opens in a new window)

Utilities

• Google celebrated 15 years of Street View with a new camera and a time travel feature on Google Maps for iOS and Android that lets you view historical imagery going all the way back to 2007.
• Apple rolled out its immersive walking directions feature for Apple Maps in the city of Tokyo. The feature offers step-by-step walking guidance in augmented reality. Users simply raise their iPhone to scan buildings in the area, and Maps then generates a highly accurate position to deliver directions.
• Maryland residents are now able to store their driver license or state ID in the Apple Wallet app. The state is now the second in the U.S. to support the new feature, following the launch in Arizona in March.

Government, policy and… antitrust lawsuits

• Match Group and Google reached an interim compromise over app payments. Match agreed to withdraw its request for a temporary restraining order and put up to $40 million aside in escrow in lieu of making payments directly to Google while its antitrust lawsuit over app store fees is decided.
• Epic Games and Google also reached a similar agreement over Epic’s Bandcamp. The company had filed an injunction asking for the right to allow Bandcamp to continue operating as usual instead of being forced to adopt Google’s own payments system as is now required via a policy change, or risk expulsion from the Google Play Store. Bandcamp agreed to place 10% of its revenue into escrow until Epic Games’ larger antitrust lawsuit with Google is decided.
• In a new court filing, Epic Games challenged Apple’s position that third-party app stores would compromise the iPhone’s security. It points to Apple’s macOS as an example of how the process of “sideloading” apps — installing apps outside of Apple’s own App Store, that is — doesn’t have to be the threat Apple describes it to be. Apple’s Mac, explains Epic, doesn’t have the same constraints as found in the iPhone operating system, iOS, and yet Apple touts the operating system used in Mac computers, macOS, as secure.
• Apple again criticized the impact of allowing sideloading on iOS devices, following U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s introduction of an updated version of the American Choice and Innovation Act aimed to address lawmaker and tech industry concerns over the original. Said Apple, the changes weren’t enough and will “undermine the privacy and security protections” its users depend on.

Security & Privacy

Image Credits: Proton

• Encrypted email provider ProtonMail, makers of a popular iOS mail app, rebranded as just “Proton” as it works to combine services including Proton VPN, Proton Calendar and Proton Drive under one roof.
• DuckDuckGo confirmed a researcher’s findings which indicated its browser allows some Microsoft trackers on third-party sites. The company said this was due to a Microsoft search content agreement, which had been previously undisclosed. The company defended itself on Hacker News, saying that the deal was “just about non-DuckDuckGo and non-Microsoft sites in our browsers, where our search syndication agreement currently prevents us from stopping Microsoft-owned scripts from loading.” It noted DuckDuckGo can still apply its browser’s protections post-load — like third-party cookie blocking and others. The company operates browsing apps for Mac, iOS and Android.
• Brave Software, the company behind the cross-platform privacy-focused Brave browser, extended its partnership with Guardian, makers of Guardian Firewall + VPN. The deal will integrate Brave Firewall + VPN, powered by Guardian, into the Brave Android app. The move follows the Firewall + VPN for the Brave iPhone and iPad browser apps.
• A study by Human Rights Watch found that 89% of 164 remote learning apps and sites used during the pandemic across 49 countries had shared student data with marketers and data brokers.

Funding and M&A

Take-Two completed its $12.7 billion acquisition of mobile games giant Zynga. The deal saw Zynga shareholders receive $3.50 in cash and 0.0406 shares of Take-Two common stock per share of Zynga common stock.

AR mobile game maker Jadu raised $36 million in a Series A round led by Bain Capital Crypto to accelerate its work building out an AR game featuring 3D NFT avatars from Deadfellaz, CyberKongz, FLUFs, VOIDs, ChibiApes, Meebits and other collections. The company has raised $45 million+ to date.

Friendly Apps just closed on a $3 million seed round, pre-product, from BoxGroup, Weekend Fund, Shrug Capital, Day One Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, SRB Ventures, 305 Ventures, CoreVentures and other angels. The startup hails from longtime engineer and product designer Michael Sayman, who has been building apps since he was a kid, landing him roles at Facebook, Google, Roblox, and, most recently, Twitter. Having joined Facebook at just 17, he’s often been tasked with developing products aimed at a teenage audience. Now he’s planning to leverage his understanding of what users want from their apps with his own startup.

Circles, an app that offers online group therapy via video chat, raised $16.5 million in a Series A round led by Zeev Ventures. Also participating was Lior Ron, head of Uber Freight, along with existing investors NFX, Flint Capital and Sir Ronald Cohen.

Pokémon GO maker Niantic disclosed its first two investments. The company said it has backed TRIPP, an award-winning leader in XR wellness, and music metaverse startup Pixelynx, from musicians deadmau5 and Plastikman. The latter’s first mobile game is called Elynxir and is using Niantic’s new Lightship AR platform to combine musical experiences and AR. Deal terms weren’t disclosed.

The UK’s competition watchdog has just announced another investigation into Google over potential antitrust abuses around adtech.

This is the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) second probe of Google’s adtech practices — after said it would investigate an ad deal between Google and Facebook referred to internally as ‘Jedi Blue’, back in March. (That deal also features in a major antitrust complaint against Google’s adtech over the pond, led by the US State of Texas.)

The CMA did also open a probe of Google’s ad-related Privacy Sandbox plan last year, triggered by complaints over its planned deprecation of tracking cookies to migrate to an alternative stack of ad targeting technologies — a development that remains under external monitoring after a settlement between Google and the regulator which looks, at very least, to have slowed the pace of any switch. (Google also recently revised its approach to push for topic-based ad targeting, rather than cohorts.)

The latest Google probe by the CMA focuses on what it describes as “strong” positions Google holds in adtech intermediation, aka the adtech tech stack, which the regulator suspects could be distorting competition — since the tech giant owns the largest service provider in three key parts of the chain.

The parts where it’ll be examining Google’s dominance are: DSPs (aka demand side platforms which enable advertisers and media agencies to buy publishers’ available ad space from many sources); ad exchanges (which provide the tech to automate the sale of publishers’ ad inventory via real-time auctions); and publisher ad servers (which manage publisher inventory and determine which ad to show based on bids received from exchanges and/or direct deals between publishers and advertisers).

“The CMA is assessing whether Google’s practices in these parts of the ad tech stack may distort competition. These include whether Google limited the interoperability of its ad exchange with third-party publisher ad servers and/or contractually tied these services together, making it more difficult for rival ad servers to compete,” the regulator wrote in a press release. “The CMA is also concerned that Google may have used its publisher ad server and its DSPs to illegally favour its own ad exchange services, while taking steps to exclude the services offered by rivals.”

Google has a dominant share across key parts of the adtech tech stack, as an earlier CMA market study established (see chart below). But its ad products have evolved and merged over the years, as well as undergoing some rebranding — such as when Google sought to move away from the DoubleClick brand back in 2018 — all of which makes what is already a complex and even opaque market structure even more difficult for outsiders to get a handle on.

Image credit: CMA final report on online advertising and platforms market study, July 2020

Among a number of concerning characteristics the CMA found were inhibiting competition in the ad market in its 2020 study, was a lack of transparency — which it suggested made it difficult for market participants to “understand or challenge how decisions are made and to exercise choice effectively”.

Other characteristics it suggested were undermining “effective competition” in the digital ad market were network effects and economies of scale; consumer decision making and the power of defaults; unequal access to user data; the importance of ecosystems; and vertical integration, and resultant conflicts of interest.

However, despite making a damning assessment of the state of the online ad market almost two full years ago — when it recommended substantial reforms — the CMA has not taken any enforcement action against Google to crack the market open. (Although a 2019 consultation, following publication of its preliminary report, featured breaking up the adtech giant as one of a number of potential remedies.)

Instead, in the final market report the CMA opted to push for new powers so it could make pro-competition interventions to remedy structural problems attached to tech giants with strategic market power.

But, years on, the CMA is still waiting for the UK government to legislation to empower the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) — which started work in shadow form last year. And it looks likely to have years more to wait, as the government has not made rebooting the competition regime an immediate priority.

Hence the CMA resorting to flexing its existing powers by opening investigations into specific adtech practices.

The regulator’s PR also reiterates that while it’s waiting on the government to empower the DMU it will “forge ahead using its existing powers in the tech sector” — so there’s a bit of a shot across Whitehall’s bows to get on with it.

On the Google probe specifically, Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s CEO, said today that it’s opening a new investigation as it’s concerned Google is unfairly leveraging its dominant position to favor its own services — harming rivals, customers and consumers.

In the statement he added:

“Weakening competition in this area could reduce the ad revenues of publishers, who may be forced to compromise the quality of their content to cut costs or put their content behind paywalls. It may also be raising costs for advertisers which are passed on through higher prices for advertised goods and services.

“It’s vital that we continue to scrutinise the behaviour of the tech firms which loom large over our lives and ensure the best outcomes for people and businesses throughout the UK.”

The CMA also makes a point of noting that the investigation of Google’s adtech practices will “further consider” the “significant issues” and “possible solutions” that its 2020 market study had identified for addressing market power in adtech.

Google was contacted for comment on the latest CMA probe.

It told us it hasn’t seen the full CMA complaint yet so can’t respond in detail — but in a statement attributed to a spokesperson it said:

“Advertising tools from Google and many competitors help websites and apps fund their content, and help businesses of all sizes effectively reach their customers. Google’s tools alone have supported an estimated £55 billion in economic activity for over 700,000 businesses in the UK and when publishers choose to use our advertising services, they keep the majority of revenue. We will continue to work with the CMA to answer their questions and share the details on how our systems work.”

The European Union announced its own wide-ranging probe of Google’s adtech practices last summer — and that investigation remains ongoing. But France’s antitrust watchdog has already conducted its own investigation of Google’s self-preferencing in adtech and, last summer, the national authority hit it with a $268M penalty for a string of abuses.

The tech giant requested a settlement in France — proposing a series of interoperability commitments that the regulator accepted as part of its binding decision. So the country has been ahead of the pack on the adtech antitrust issue.

Adtech ops are also subject to privacy scrutiny in Europe — where Google’s lead data protection regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, has — since 2019 — had an enquiry open into its ad exchange, following complaints about the security of real-time bidding’s processing of personal data.

However the DPC is being sued for inaction over complaints that date back to 2018.

Other EU privacy complaints about real-time bidding have focused on the validity of consent/legal basis for the mass processing of web users’ data — and a major decision by Belgium’s data protection authority earlier this year identified a laundry list of problems with an industry standard framework that could force some reform of certain privacy-hostile adtech practices.

Google has been working to better integrate its visual search tools from Google Lens into its browser to enable new types of searches that can identify what you see, not just search for things you type. Today, Google is rolling out a new way to use Google Lens on the desktop. Instead of opening a new tab to perform a search, you’ll be able to use Lens on the same page in your Chrome browser to do things like translating an image’s text, identifying an object in an image, or getting the original source from an image.

Previously, Google had offered Lens capabilities in Image search and Google Photos on the web, but its fullest offering was on mobile devices. This April, Google also rolled out Lens-powered multisearch capabilities on mobile allowing users to search with both text and images combined — hinting at the company’s broader plans to further invest in Lens technology to make searches feel more natural.

Prior to this, the company had announced it would be integrating Lens with Chrome on the desktop, as well, in the “coming months.”

Today’s update will allow Chrome browser users on desktop to right-click on any image on a web page, then go to the new menu option “Search image with Google Lens.” This is the same menu where today, you could save or copy the image or open it in a new tab.

Image Credits: Google

This will open a set of search results in a new panel on the side of the web page with more information about the photo. You can then choose to click a button to find the image source, which lets you see other web pages that include that same image. You could also translate text in the image or use Lens to help you identify what’s in the photo.

In other words, it introduces a way to use the image as the starting point for a new search from the webpage you’re on, instead of requiring that you start a new query about the image from Google’s Image search or by typing in a standard text-based search on Google.com.

The feature is similar to a reverse image feature found in Microsoft’s newer web browser, Microsoft Edge, which also allows users to perform a reverse image search in a sidebar without leaving their current tab. The searches themselves are performed by Bing, however.

Google says the new feature is rolling out starting today to all Chrome users and is part of its larger efforts to help people search in more intuitive ways.

Epic Games isn’t just fighting the app stores over the right to process its own in-app payments in its popular game Fortnite, it’s also taken up its antitrust legal battle with the tech giants via Bandcamp, the internet music company Epic acquired in March. The following month, Epic filed an injunction asking for the right to allow Bandcamp to continue operating as usual instead of being forced to adopt Google’s own payments system as is now required via a policy change, or risk expulsion from the Google Play Store. On Friday, Bandcamp prevailed on this front, earning the ability to continue to legally operate its existing payment system on Android devices until Epic’s case with Google is resolved, per a new court agreement.

This means Bandcamp’s fans will be able to continue to support their favorite artists on Android devices by buying music and merchandise, as they have since 2015, and artists will receive the same percentage of sales, as usual, Bandcamp said. In addition, Google will not be able to de-list the Bandcamp app from the Google Play Store, nor delay or refuse to distribute its app updates as part of the new agreement.

Bandcamp also said it will now place 10% of the revenue generated by the digital sales on Android devices in escrow until Epic’s lawsuit with Google is decided. At that point, the court will determine whether it or Google will receive those funds based on whether it rules Google’s payments system is anticompetitive.

The 10% figure itself — which represents the commissions Bandcamp would otherwise have to pay Google — is a bit unusual. Google’s typical commissions on in-app purchases range from 15% to 30% for most Google Play developers. But Google offered Bandcamp a reduced fee of 10% in exchange for other concessions, the original court filing revealed. Despite the special offer, Bandcamp argued this was still too much, as it would “force Epic to change Bandcamp’s current business model or else operate the Bandcamp business at a long-term loss,” the filing said.

In a statement published last month to the Bandcamp blog, Bandcamp CEO and co-founder Ethan Diamond further explained that the company would have to “either pass Google’s fees on to consumers (making Android a less attractive platform for music fans), pass fees on to artists (which we would never do), permanently run our Android business at a loss, or turn off digital sales in the Android app,” in order to comply with Google’s new policy changes around in-app purchases.

He also pointed out that Bandcamp had used its own payments system for years, consistent with Google’s prior guidance that exempted digital music from incurring a revenue share.

Bandcamp isn’t the only company to come to some such agreement with Google over in-app purchases amid antitrust lawsuits.

Also on Friday, dating giant Match Group forged a similar compromise with Google, resulting in Match withdrawing its temporary restraining order against Google. Per the terms of its deal, Google agreed to not reject or delete Match Group apps from the Play Store for providing alternative payment options and Match said would place up to $40 million in an escrow account in lieu of paying its commissions to Google for the in-app payments taking place outside Google Play’s payment system.

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. App Annie says global spending across iOS and Google Play is up to $135 billion in 2021, and that figure will likely be higher when its annual report, including third-party app stores in China, is released next year. Consumers also downloaded 10 billion more apps in 2021 than in 2020, reaching nearly 140 billion in new installs, it found.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that was up 27% year-over-year.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Top Stories

Apps celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day

This past Thursday, May 19, 2022, marked the 11th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), which is a day focused on raising awareness about digital access and inclusion for the more than 1 billion people who live with disabilities or impairments. A number of app makers and tech companies took part in GAAD this year to either highlight or announce new features designed to better meet the needs of those with vision impairment, hearing loss and other disabilities.

Instagram’s @creators account shared information with its community about how and why to use accessibility features, like alt-text and auto-generated captions to create a better experience for your audience. The company also noted other developments it had rolled out, like dark mode, screen reader improvements, improved automatic and custom alternative text options for people with vision impairments, caption stickers for Reels and Stories, and more. The company also said it has started rolling out closed caption features to improve the Instagram experience for the deaf and hard of hearing communities. These changes help to improve the experience for everyone, however, as Instagram said one-third of video plays on Instagram are with the sound off. In March, Instagram made auto-generated captions the default for creators, which are supported globally across iOS and Android.

Google shared its approach to both hiring people with disabilities and building products to meet their needs. For example, it highlighted projects like Project Relate, a communication tool for people with speech impairments; the update to TalkBack, Android’s built-in screen reader; and the improved Select-to-Speak Chromebook tool; a multi-pin feature for Google Meet, which allows users to pin multiple tiles, like a presenter’s screen and interpreter’s screen. The company also noted all its English-language YouTube Originals content from the past year — and moving forward — will now have English audio descriptions available globally.

Apple, meanwhile, participated in GAAD with a number of announcements about new accessibility features for iPhone, Apple Watch and Mac.

These included a universal Live Captions feature, improved visual and auditory detection modes and iOS access to WatchOS apps. Live Captions will be able to transcribe any audio content, like FaceTime calls, video conferencing apps and streaming video, as well as in-person conversations, all in English to start.

Image Credits: Apple

Apple’s Sound Recognition feature will be able to be programmed to recognize sounds unique to a person’s own home, like their doorbell or appliances. The Magnifier app will add a new ML and lidar-powered Door Detection feature within a new Detection Mode section. This will help users locate a door, understand how far they are from it and describe door attributes. Apple Maps will offer sound and haptics feedback for VoiceOver users. And Apple Watch will help users control Apple Watch remotely from their paired iPhone with Apple Watch Mirroring. It also gains new Quick Action like a double-pinch gesture to answer or end a phone call, dismiss a notification, take a photo, play or pause media in the Now Playing app, and start, pause or resume a workout.

Snap’s platform policies for third-party apps aren’t yet fully enforced

Image Credits: TechCrunch

A handful of Snap Kit platform developers have not yet complied with the new guidelines around anonymous messaging and friend-finding apps announced in March. The Snapchat maker revamped its developer platform policies on March 17, 2022, to ban anonymous apps and require developers to build friend-finding apps to limit access to users 18 or older. The policy changes were effective immediately and existing developers were given 30 days to come into compliance — a date that would have passed last month.

It is now mid-May and some developers of the newly banned and restricted apps are not yet meeting Snap’s new requirements.

Snap confirmed to TechCrunch a small number of apps were given extensions, including anonymous apps LMK and Send It. But others seemed to be working around Snap’s ban with their friend-finding apps marketed to users ages 12+, instead of the now required 18+. They got away with this by not actually using the SDK — something impossible to tell from their App Store marketing and screenshots which imply they’re directly integrated with Snap’s features. Another app had flown under the radar, continuing to operate in violation of the rules unless TechCrunch pointed it out, resulting in a belated ban. This lack of clarity on which apps are platform apps, and which are only pretending to be, could complicate things for Snap, which is engaged in litigation over bullying-related suicides. And like all social media, the company could be under new U.S. regulation related to child safety matters in the future, as well.

Twitter deal still a go… for now

First, Elon Musk tweeted that the Twitter deal was “temporarily on hold” until Twitter could prove the percentage of spambots on its platform was actually less than 5%, as it reports. This Tuesday, he reiterated the deal would not move forward until Twitter would show him proof of this <5% figure. Twitter was having none of it, though. The company filed a proxy statement, saying it’s committed to the deal as agreed and is ready to close “as promptly as possible.”

If Musk’s move was an attempt to renegotiate the price, it didn’t seem to be working. Twitter’s top lawyer and head of policy, Vijaya Gadde, told staff at an all-hands meeting there’s “no such thing as a deal being on hold,” reported Bloomberg. Twitter execs also suggested that it could try to enforce the deal terms in court, if need be, but said that would be “pretty rare” for such a thing to occur. (Not that this Twitter deal is proceeding normally though!) There’s still some speculation that Musk is looking to fully back out and will find a way to do so, billion-dollar breakup fee notwithstanding. In the meantime, the bankers are still preparing the paperwork and execs are still leaving. This week, it was Twitter Service VP Katrina Lane, head of data science Max Schmeiser and VP of product management Ilya Brown — all of whom chose to leave on their own.

Apple’s new rules let apps raise subscription prices automatically

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Alongside the launch of the iOS 15.5 update, Apple introduced a new set of rules to govern auto-renewing subscriptions on the App Store. Now, instead of asking users to agree to any subscription price increases, developers will be able to roll out a price increase with the user’s explicit consent. The feature allows developers to simply inform customers they’ll be charged more, but not require the customer to opt-in to the higher pricing.

We first broke the news that Apple was pilot testing this program last month, when it appeared Disney+ subscription customers had simply been told their price was increasing but weren’t asked for their consent. Apple then confirmed this was the result of a “new commerce feature” it planned to launch soon, which it said would be “great for both developers and users.”

Apple’s position is that this could save customers the hassle of having their subscriptions automatically canceled just because they didn’t see the notification or email that asked them to opt in to the price increase.

“This has led to some services being unintentionally interrupted for users and they must take steps to resubscribe within the app, from Settings on iPhone and iPad, or in the App Store on Mac,” the company explained in its announcement on Monday.

However, the flip side of this argument is that those same customers who would have missed the consent notification will likely be the same ones who would now miss the notification informing them their subscription will be increasing in price. There’s also an argument here that this change could enable unscrupulous developers and scammers to better profit from their victims if Apple doesn’t carefully enforce the program rules.

Currently, those state that developers can’t increase prices more than once per year. The increase also can’t exceed 50% of the subscription price, and the difference in price can’t exceed $5 USD per period for non-annual subscriptions or $50 USD for annual subscriptions.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• Apple released the first public betas of iOS 15.6, iPadOS 15.6, tvOS 15.6, watchOS 8.7 and macOS 12.5. Now included in the beta lineup is HomePod Software 15.6.
• Apple also released iOS 15.5 to the public, which included a new way to request and send money from their Apple Cash card through the Wallet app, as well as a slew of new features for the Apple Podcasts app, and other features.
• The latest Swift Playgrounds update (ver. 4.1) added App Store Connect integration for macOS users.
• Apple targeted data brokers in its latest ad that promotes iOS privacy features.

Platforms: Google

• Google Play expanded its app sanctions against Russia to include Belarus. The company will block the download of paid apps and updates to paid apps in both Russia and Belarus, it said in an update to its help article on the matter.
• Alongside its announcement of its new Fire 7 tablet, Amazon also revealed that its upcoming Fire OS 8, its own Android-based OS, will launch in June.
• An update to the Google System Update changelog again indicates that Google’s Family Link software will allow parents to set a persistent launcher on their child’s supervised device. This would make it so that a child couldn’t change the phone’s launcher to do anything other than what’s approved. The feature hasn’t been publicly announced.

E-commerce and Food Delivery

• Uber announced a partnership with Grocery Outlet to pilot on-demand and scheduled grocery delivery. Initially, users can shop at 72 Grocery Outlet stores in California, Oregon and Washington state via the Uber or Uber Eats app.
• Uber also announced a whole host of new features at its global product event earlier in the week. Here, Uber launched an “Uber Travel” feature that helps riders pre-book rides to and from upcoming events, like flights or restaurant reservations. It also announced an Uber Charter service for booking party buses, passenger vans and coach buses; plus event vouchers, an EV and charging map, various new Uber Eats products and additional perks for its Uber One membership; and more.
• Snapchat and eBay announce integrations. Snapchat users can now share eBay listings with their friends using the Snapchat Camera on Android and iOS.
• YouTube teased new features that it claims will make it easier for viewers to discover and buy from brands. One new feature will allow two creators to go live at the same time to co-host a single live shopping stream. This could effectively double the draw for the event, as each creator would bring their own fanbase to the stream. Another upcoming option is called “live redirects.” With this, creators are able to start a shopping livestream on their channel, then redirect their audience over to a brand’s channel for fans to keep watching. This allows brands to tap into the power of the creator’s platform and reach their fanbase, but then gives the brands themselves access to that audience — and the key metrics and analytics associated with their live event — directly on their own YouTube channel.

Fintech

• FTX US plans to launch FTX Stocks, a zero-commission stock trading feature available through the FTX mobile app, rolling out in the U.S. in the “coming months.” The news is particularly notable given that billionaire FTX US founder Sam Bankman-Fried recently acquired a 7.6% stake in Robinhood.
• Robinhood will launch a standalone app that lets users hold their own cryptocurrencies and NFTs, putting it in direct competition with Coinbase and startups like MetaMask or Rainbow. The move comes at a time when Robinhood’s stocks are off by more than 70% since its IPO.
• Coinbase backtracked on its hiring plans, citing the crypto market turmoil. The company had earlier planned to triple headcount this year, but is now reassessing its headcount needs.
• Coinbase also said it would let a “small set” of users access Ethereum-based decentralized apps directly from its own app via the new dApp browser. The feature would allow users to purchase NFTs on OpenSea and Coinbase’s NFT platform; trade on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and SushiSwap; and borrow and lend through DeFi platforms like Curve and Compound.
• Plaid, whose service powers a number of fintech aps, announced two products for ACH transfers, including identity verification, putting it into competition with Stripe.
• Greenlight, a $2.3 billion fintech focused on kids, launched a credit card for parents. The Greenlight-branded card, offered through Mastercard, offers up to 3% unlimited cash back on all purchases and gives parents the option to automatically invest those cash rewards in stocks and ETFs. They also can choose to invest the cash in other ways through the Greenlight mobile app or transfer funds to their bank.

Social

• TikTok launched Branded Mission, a new ad product that lets advertisers crowdsource content from creators with at least 1,000 followers. Advertisers can launch branded campaigns by developing a brief and releasing it to the creator community, encouraging them to participate in Branded Missions. Eligible creators whose videos are selected by brands will then benefit from a cash payment and boosted traffic.
• TikTok launched its first creator crediting tool to help video creators cite their inspiration for dances, jokes, sounds and other content. The tool allows a creator to pick a video that’s then automatically added to their own video’s caption, linking back to the original creator. The changes follow years of complaints that top TikTok stars were lifting choreography from smaller creators, often Black creators. The problem got so bad that last year, some Black creators went on strike, refusing to create new dance moves for a recently dropped Megan Thee Stallion single as a form of protest.

Image Credits: TikTok

• Twitter rolled out the ability for creators to host Super Follows-only Spaces as a subscriber perk. Subscribers globally on iOS and Android will be able to join and request to speak in Super Follows-only Spaces. (Web users can only join and listen for now.) Users who aren’t Super Following a creator can still see the Space but won’t be able to access it unless they subscribe.
• Snap announced its new Snap Originals shows, which were also recently previewed at a company event. The show features stars like Simone Biles, winner of 32 Olympic and World Championship medals; NAACP Image Award winner La’Ron Hines; Dixie and Charli D’Amelio; and others.
• Facebook and Twitter struggled to contain the Buffalo shooting video which was circulating across their platforms where it was being reported by end users. The New York AG also announced plans to investigate Twitch, Discord and 4chan for their role in the mass shooting.
• Snap-owned social maps app Zenly, used by 35 million people monthly, rolled out its own mapping data and engine following last month’s redesign. The project was built using open source data from OpenStreetMap and acquired datasets from third parties. The maps feature 3D landmarks, animated effects, tiny cars, people, 3D trees and more. The new maps are live in Taipei, Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, New York and Seoul.

Image Credits: Zenly

Photos

• Photo and video-editing app Picsart laid off 90 employees, or around 8% of its workforce, amid the market downturn.

Dating

• Regulatory filings indicated Tiger Global sold off its entire stake in Bumble, along with other apps like Airbnb and Didi, as well as ~80% of its stake in Robinhood during 2022’s tech stock sell-off, FT reported.
• Match Group-owned Hinge introduced a new feature aimed at helping users initiate conversations about self-care. The new Self-Care Prompts may include things like “The last time I cried happy tears was…,” “My friends ask me for advice about…,” “To me, relaxation is…,” “I feel most supported when…,” “A boundary of mine is…,” and others.

Messaging

• Meta launched its free WhatsApp Cloud API, aimed at SMBs, to all businesses worldwide after earlier beta testing. The API allows companies to build on top of WhatsApp to better serve their customers, but without the costs and longer integration time for the on-premise version. WhatsApp also said it would roll out paid features for its WhatsApp Business app later this year, including things like the ability to manage chats across up to 10 devices. The company will also provide new customizable WhatsApp click-to-chat links that help businesses attract customers across their online presence, it said.
• WhatsApp is also developing a feature that will allow users to stealthily exit group chats without informing the group, according to a leak from WABetaInfo. The feature was developed for the new Communities feature rolling out slowly this year.
• Indian users of the Google Messages app say RCS is being abused by businesses to spam users with ads, with the frequency of the ads picking up over the past few months.
• Apple’s Communication Safety in Messages expanded to more countries with iOS 15.5, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.

Streaming & Entertainment

• YouTube’s player gained new features, including Most Replayed, Video Chapters for big-screen devices, Single Loop and more. The company said it’s adding a graph that people can use to easily locate and watch the most replayed parts of a video — something that could be particularly helpful for longer videos or those that haven’t broken down their various sections using either timestamps or video chapters. It also rolled out Video Chapters to smart TVs and gaming consoles and an option to set a video on a looping mode.
• Apple Music launched Apple Music Live, a new recurring series that will livestream concerts from major artists, kicking off with a Harry Styles concert Friday at 9 PM ET alongside the release of his third album, “Harry’s House.” Encore streams will run at 12:00 PM ET on  May 22 and 5 AM ET on May 26. Apple wouldn’t say if VOD streams would ever be available.
• Spotify and Accenture teamed up in order to offer Spotify Premium as an employee perk as part of a new offering called “Spotify for Work.” Accenture kicked off the deal by rolling out Spotify to its employees across Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania.
• YouTube Music for Wear OS was updated to allow users to stream content over Wi-Fi and LTE. The feature means users will be able to listen to favorite songs even if their phone isn’t nearby.
• Charli XCX is scheduled to play a “metaverse” concert on Roblox on June 17, 2022, at 7 PM ET. The concert will follow a five-week virtual event comprising mini-games and other digital challenges.
• The Apple Podcasts app gained new storage clean-up tools, support for annual subscriptions and a new distribution system. The new Apple Podcasts Delegated Delivery system will soon allow creators to more easily distribute their podcasts directly to Apple Podcasts from third-party hosting providers, including Acast, ART19, Blubrry, Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Omny Studio and RSS.com. The clean-up tools, meanwhile, will come in handy for better controlling how many episodes are saved locally and give you a chance to bulk remove downloads for the first time, including on Mac.

Gaming

• Fortnite launched to all iOS users via Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service after a few months of closed beta trials. The launch means iPhone users have yet another workaround to play the popular game on their device, despite its ban from the App Store, following Fortnite’s launch on Microsoft’s Cloud Gaming service earlier this month.
• A report from Reuters said TikTok was testing HTML5 games in Vietnam, but TikTok told TechCrunch that was inaccurate — no games were currently testing in that market. However, the company had previously confirmed it was engaged in further gaming partnership discussions after its Zynga deal was announced.
• TechCrunch also reported and confirmed a separate effort focused on bringing interactive minigames — like “Draw & Guess” — to the TikTok LIVE platform.
• Niantic’s Pokémon GO partnered with Amazon Prime Gaming and Prime Student to offer exclusive bonus item bundles every two weeks to Prime members. Users can log in to Prime and get a code, which they can redeem on Niantic’s rewards page. The items will then appear in the game.

Security & Privacy

• Brave’s iOS web browser was updated with a new Privacy Hub feature that offers users more visibility on exactly what Brave blocked, and how Brave protects your personal information online. It does so by showing a rolling update of how many trackers Brave blocked on a specific site, or in a given time span. The hub also offers education about trackers and privacy threats.
• Apple patched almost 30 security flaws with iOS 15.5, as well as over 50 fixes for macOS 12.4.

Funding and M&A

Pintarnya, a startup building a super app for Indonesia’s blue-collar workers, raised $6.3 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital India and General Catalyst. The funding includes a $100,000 grant from Sequoia Spark, a program for women founders. The app offers verified job postings and financial services, like loans, for blue-collar workers.

Instant delivery app Gopuff, valued at $15 billion, announced a new advisor and investor: Bob Iger, the former CEO and chairman of The Walt Disney Company. The company wouldn’t say if the investment was coming as a separate investment, or as part of a $1 billion round (in debt and equity) that the company is in the process of closing.

Instabug, a startup that helps mobile developers monitor, identify and fix bugs within apps, raised $46 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners. The company said its ARR doubled in 2021 and the number of enterprise customers grew 10x, as it added new clients like DoorDash, Verizon, Qualtrics, Porsche and Gojek. Last year, its software sat within 2.7 billion mobile devices, processed 110 billion mobile sessions (up at least 20x from 2020) and helped customers resolve 4.2 billion issues, it said.

Unit, a banking-as-a-service startup that allows developers to easily build new fintech apps, raised $100 million in Series C funding led by Insight Partners, at a $1.2 billion valuation. Unit said its transaction volume grew 7x over the past six months and has crossed an annualized transaction volume of $2.6 billion. It’s also issued over 430,000 cards to over 330,000 customers and saw a 10x increase in deposit volumes.

Google Cloud is holding its annual Security Summit this week and unsurprisingly, the company used the event to launch a few new security features. This year, the announcements focus on software supply chain security, Zero Trust and tools for making it easier for enterprises to adopt Google Cloud’s security capabilities.

It’s no surprise that software supply chain security makes an appearance at this year’s event. Thanks to recent high-profile attacks, it’s been the focus of White House summits and, just last week, an industry group that includes Google, Amazon, Ericsson, Intel, Microsoft and VMware pledged $30 million to work with the Linux Foundation and Open Source Security Foundation to improve the security of open-source software.

At today’s Summit, Google Cloud announced the launch of its Assured Open Source Software service, which gives enterprises and government users access to the same vetted open-source packages that Google itself uses in its projects. According to the company, these packages are regularly scanned, analyzed and fuzz-tested for vulnerabilities and built with Google Cloud’s Cloud Build service with evidence of SLSA-compliance (that’s ‘Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts,’ a framework for safeguarding artifact integrity across software supply chains). These packages are also signed by Google and distributed from Google’s secured registry. “Assured OSS helps organizations reduce the need to develop, maintain, and operate a complex process for securely managing their open source dependencies,” Google explains in its announcement today.

Also new today is BeyondCorp Enterprise Essentials, a new edition of Google Cloud’s BeyondCorp Enterpirse Zero Trust solution that promises to “help organizations quickly and easily take the first steps toward Zero Trust implementation.” The company says it includes features like context-aware access controls for SaaS applications and other SAML-connected services, as well as threat and data protection capabilities, in addition to data loss prevention, malware and phishing protection in Chrome.

Finally, Google is also launched a new Security Foundation solution for enterprises that aims to make it easier for them to adopt Google Cloud’s security capabilities. It joins Google’s other ready-made solutions, which so far have focused on specific industries (retail, media and entertainment, financial services, etc.) as opposed to this more general security-centric package. “This solution is aligned to the prescriptive guidance from our Google Cloud Cybersecurity Action Team, and codified in our Security Foundations Blueprint, so that you get the controls you need for data protection, network security, security monitoring, and more to help make your deployments secure from day one–and to do it more cost-effectively,” Google explains.

As environmental issues take center stage with increasingly severe weather incidents, wildfires, droughts and floods across the globe, companies who generate pollution up and down the supply chain are looking for ways to measure their impact on the environment with an ultimate goal of finding ways to minimize their overall contribution to the problem.

But in order to improve your carbon footprint, you need to be able to get a baseline measurement and then follow the data over time and that takes a set of software tools.

Microsoft wants to help, and it announced new offering today called Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability. In a blog post authored by Alysa Taylor, Corporate vice president, industry, apps, and data marketing; and Elisabeth Brinton, Corporate vice president for sustainability; the company outlined its plans for a new offering to help.

The solution aims to use of a set of measuring devices to collect the data, and then take advantage of Microsoft’s cloud-based data collection services to process and understand that data.

“To effectively drive sustainability reporting, sustainability efforts, and business transformation, organizations need better visibility into activities across their enterprise and value chain. Collecting and connecting IoT data from devices using sensors — combined with rich services at the edge or in the cloud — provides the basis to monitor and measure activities at scale.”

The data collection piece takes place in a tool called Microsoft Sustainability Manager, which they write”will empower organizations to more easily record, report and reduce their environmental impact through increasingly automated data connections that deliver actionable insights.”

Microsoft is not alone in this type of effort as other major players have made similar announcements over the last year including Salesforce, Google and IBM. In fact, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said at a press event last week, sustainability is going to be a big business moving forward, as more companies try to reduce their carbon output. Salesforce and Google have built similar products, while IBM acquired Envizi, a startup that helps companies measure their carbon usage.

All of these solutions are data driven, and look to help companies collect key data to understand their environmental impact, while finding ways to reduce it over time and meet sustainability goals.

Microsoft will also be working with a variety of partners to help extend the solution beyond its core offering. The tool will be available for testing or purchasing on June 1st.

Google is facing a new class-action style lawsuit in the UK in relation to a health data scandal that broke back in 2016, when it emerged that its AI division, DeepMind, had been passed data on more than a million patients as part of an app development project by the Royal Free NHS Trust in London — without the patients’ knowledge or consent.

The Trust was later sanctioned by the UK’s data protection watchdog which found, in mid 2017, that it had breached uk data protection law when it signed the 2015 data-sharing deal with DeepMind. However the tech firm — which had been engaged by the Trust to help develop an app wrapper for an NHS algorithm to alert clinicians to the early signs of acute kidney injury (aka the Streams app) — avoided sanction since the Trust had been directly responsible for sending it the patients’ data.

So it’s interesting that this private litigation is targeting Google and DeepMind Technologies, several years later. (Albeit, if a claim seeking damages against one of the world’s most valuable companies prevails there is likely to be considerably more upside vs litigation aimed at a publicly funded healthcare Trust.)

Mishcon de Reya, the law firm that’s been engaged to represent the sole named claimant, a man called Andrew Prismall — who says he’s bringing the suit on behalf of approximately 1.6 million individuals whose records were passed to DeepMind — said the litigation will seek damages for unlawful use of patients’ confidential medical records. The claim is being brought in the High Court of Justice of England & Wales.

The law firm also confirmed that the Royal Free is not being sued.

“The claim is for Misuse of Private Information by Google and DeepMind. This is under common law,” a spokeswoman for Mishcon de Reya told us. “We can also confirm this is a damages claim.”

A similar claim, announced last September, was discontinued, according to the spokeswoman — who confirmed: “This is a new claim for the misuse of private information.”

In a statement on why he’s suing Google/DeepMind, Prismall said: “I hope that this case can achieve a fair outcome and closure for the many patients whose confidential records were — without the patients’ knowledge — obtained and used by these large tech companies.”

“This claim is particularly important as it should provide some much-needed clarity as to the proper parameters in which technology companies can be allowed to access and make use of private health information,” added Ben Lasserson, partner at Mishcon de Reya, in another supporting statement.

The firm notes that the litigation is being funded by a litigation finance agreement with Litigation Capital Management Ltd, a Sydney, Australia headquartered entity which it describes as an alternative asset manager specialising in dispute financing solutions internationally.

Google was contacted for comment on the new suit but at the time of writing the adtech giant had not responded.

There has been an uptake in class-action style litigations targeting tech giants over misuse of data in Europe, although a number have focused on trying to bring claims under data protection law.

One such case, a long-running consumer class action-style suit in the UK against Google related to a historic overriding of Safari users’ privacy settings, failed in the UK Supreme Court last year.  However Prismall is (now) suing for damages under the common law tort of misuse of private information so the failure of that earlier UK case does not necessarily have strong relevance here.

It does appear to explain why the earlier suit was discontinued and a fresh one filed, though. “It’s correct that the previous claim was brought on the basis of a breach to the Data Protection Act and the new claim is being brought on a for misuse of private information,” Mishcon de Reya’s spokeswoman told us when we asked about this. 

While the DeepMind NHS patient data scandal may seem like (very) old news, there was plenty of criticism of the regulatory response at the time — as the Trust itself did not face anything more than reputational damage.

It was not, for example, ordered to tell DeepMind to delete patient data — and DeepMind was able to carry on inking deals with other NHS Trusts to roll out the app despite it having been developed without a valid legal basis to use the patient data in the first place.

And while DeepMind had defended itself against privacy concerns attached to its adtech parent Google, claiming the latter would have no access to the sensitive medical data after the scandal broke, it subsequently handed off its health division to Google, in 2018, meaning the adtech giant directly took over the role of supplying and supporting the app for NHS Trusts and processing patients’ data… (Which may be why both Google and DeepMind Technologies are named in the suit.)

There was also the issue of the memorandum of understanding inked between DeepMind and the Royal Free which set out a five-year plan to build AI models using NHS patient data. Though DeepMind always claimed no patient data had been processed for AI.

In a further twist to the saga last summer, Google announced it would be shuttering the Streams app — which, at the time, was still being used by the Royal Free NHS Trust. The Trust claimed it would continue using the app despite Google announcing its intention to decommission it — raising questions over the security of patient data once support (e.g. security patching) got withdrawn by Google.

While the tech giant may have been hoping to put the whole saga behind it by quietly shuttering Streams it will now either have to defend itself in court, generating fresh publicity for the 2015 NHS data misuse scandal — or offer to settle in order to make the suit go away quietly. (And the litigation funders are, presumably, sniffing enough opportunity either way.)

The backlash against market-dominating tech giants continues to fuel other types of class-action style lawsuits. Earlier this year, for example, a major suit was launched against Facebook’s parent, Meta, seeking billions in damages for alleged abuse of UK competition law. But the jury is out on which — or whether — representative actions targeting tech giants’ data processing habits will prevail.