Back in 2019, Amazon first announced its Sidewalk network, a new low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol and network for connecting smart devices — and keeping them online when your own WiFi network, for example, goes down, by piggybacking on your neighbor’s network. Since last year, Amazon has been turning its Echo devices into Sidewalk bridges and select Ring and Tile devices can now access the network. Now, Amazon is launching its first professional-grade Sidewalk device meant to cover large areas like a university campus or park.

The full name for the new device is a mouthful: the Amazon Sidewalk Bridge Pro by Ring. It could be installed inside but is mostly meant to be set up outside — and ideally on a high spot — and can cover hundreds of devices up to five miles away (depending on the local circumstances, of course).

To test the devices, Amazon partnered with Arizona State University, which will install these new Sidewalk bridges on light poles on its Tempe campus. The University Technology Office plans to use it as a proof-of-concept with plans to connect sunlight and temperature sensors, CO2 detectors and particle counters.

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon is also partnering with Thingy, an IoT company that specializes in environmental monitoring, to install its air quality monitoring tools to alert first responders of potential wildfires.

“Amazon Sidewalk Bridge Pro brings us the power of [Long Range] in a massive number of needed locations, easy integration with our existing applications in AWS, and trusted security for the devices and applications. We are very excited to work with Amazon Sidewalk to measure air quality and wildfires with our sensors and help solve the connectivity challenges for these critical applications,” said Scott Waller, CEO and co-founder of Thingy.

But beyond the device itself, it’s the fact that Amazon continues to invest in the Sidewalk ecosystem that’s most important here.

“We’re building a network, we’re enabling actors to help the IoT industry,” Stefano Landi, the director of Amazon Sidewalk, told me. “At the end of the day, if we want to drive the proliferation of smart and connected devices everywhere, you need to have the right network. If you talk to IoT developers today, yes, there are many options, but either it’s very expensive, from a connectivity perspective vs. cellular, or the range is limited, or it’s draining the battery, or it’s just that the overall development cycle is too complex. So we felt that we should invest and that’s what we’ve done and we continue to invest in enabling these networks so that the IoT community can build any type of application: consumer, enterprise, public sector. ”

Landi noted that only a few months after launching the network, the company now has very strong residential coverage in more than 100 major U.S. metro areas. In part, of course, that’s because there are a lot of Echo devices in America’s homes and unless users opt out, most modern Echo smart speakers now have Sidewalk enabled by default. Not everybody is comfortable with that, though Amazon would argue that it designed its network to be privacy-first and that it won’t use a lot of bandwidth (it’s mostly for passing alerts, not your Ring camera’s video feed, after all). But it’s a fair guess that most users aren’t even aware of Sidewalk to begin with.

Covering a residential area is one thing, though. With the Sidewalk Bridge Pro, businesses can now also cover entire swaths of land to connect their sensors. There seems to be some demand for this, because Landi noted that “more than a few thousand companies” have already reached out to Amazon to ask about commercial use cases — mostly in connection with AWS IoT, the company’s cloud-based managed IoT service. A lot of this interest, Landis said, is coming from companies that want to build public sector solutions, mostly around smart city services.

“The Sidewalk Bridge Pro is a professional-grade bridge that is exactly tailored to be deployed outside of those [residential areas],” explained Landis. “So that now you have coverage pretty much everywhere. Think about commercial centers, parks, city parks, state parks, municipal parks, wildness areas, commercial area, and so on. Now you really bring that ubiquitous connectivity, so when you’re there, building a solution, you know that coverage is going to be pretty much anywhere that you need it.”

Landis noted that while he expects most users to install the bridge outdoors, it can also used indoors to cover a warehouse or a large store. And even though it’s explicitly called the ‘Pro,” we shouldn’t expect the company to launch a consumer-style “non-pro” version anytime soon. That’s what the Echo and Ring devices are for, after all.

Google is working with the likes of Intel, Acer and HP to make connecting your phone to your Windows PC through Fast Pair, share files between Android devices and Windows PCs with Nearby Share, set up Bluetooth accessories and sync text messages between the two computing ecosystems.

These new capabilities will come to select Windows PCs later this year and are part of what Google calls its effort to “invest in more helpful ways for your devices to work better together.”

Image Credits: Google

Over the course of the last few years, Google and Microsoft have both launched a number of initiatives that brought Android devices and Windows PCs closer together. That includes Microsoft’s work on its own Android launchers for its Surface phones, but more importantly, apps like Microsoft’s My Phone on Windows that lets you make calls and send text messages from your PC, or the Android subsystem for Windows that lets you run Android apps on Windows 11, though that’s a cooperation with Amazon, not Google.  

In the case of the new features the company announced today, Google doesn’t like Microsoft as one of its partners either, so we’re mostly talking about some pre-installed software on new PCs from a small set of manufacturers here, not a new Windows 10 or 11 feature.

CES may be going ahead as a shortened, pared-down operation this year, but we’re still seeing a decent swathe of announcements prepared for the event still coming out into the wild, in particular among chipmakers who power the world’s computers. Intel has been a regular presence at the show and is continuing that with its run of news today, focusing on the newest, 12th generation of its mobile chip with versions aimed both at enterprises and consumers, alongside updates to its Evo computing platform concept, new 35- and 65-watt processors for desktop, and vPro platform launches.

With some of the lineup announced back in October (it has now dropped the Alder Lake naming that appeared still to be in use then) today’s news is arguably the biggest push that Intel has made in years to promote its processors and build for a range of use cases, ranging from consumers through to more intense gaming, through to enterprise applications and IoT deployments.  After what some described as a lacklustre 11th-generation launch, here Intel is unveiling no less than 28 new 12th-generation Intel Core mobile processors, and an addition 22 desktop processors.

Intel claims that the mobile processors are clocking in speeds of up to 40% faster than its previous generations

“Intel‘s new performance hybrid architecture is helping to accelerate the pace of innovation and the future of compute,” said Gregory Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group, in a statement. “We want to bring that idea of ubiquitous computing to life,” he added in a presentation today at CES.

The H-series of the 12th Gen Intel core mobile processors come in four main categories, i3, i5, i7, and i9. The i9-12900HK is the fastest of the range of eight and are one of the first from Intel to build performance and efficient cores together on the same chip to better handle heavy workloads. They come with frequencies of up to 5GHz, 14 cores (6 for performance, 8 for efficiency) and 20 threads for applications that are multi-threaded, and they also offer memory support for DDR5/LPDDR5 and DDR4/LPDDR4 modules up to 4800 MT/s. Intel says this is a first in the industry for H-series mobile processors.

They offer support for Deeplink for optimized power usage; Thunderbolt 4 for faster data transfers (up to 40 Gbps) and connectivity; and Intel’s new integrated WiFi 6E, which Intel dubs its “Killer” WiFi and will be available in nearly all laptops running Intel’s 12th generation chips. The interesting thing about this latest WiFi version is that it essentially optimizes for gameplay and other bandwidth-intensive activities: latency is created by putting the most powerful applications on channels separate from the rest of the applications on a device that might also be using bandwidth (these are relegated to lower bandwidth channels) that now essentially run in the background. Bands can also be merged intelligently by the system when more power for a specific application is needed. All this will be available from February 2022, Intel said.

H-series, it added, is now in full production, with Acer, Dell, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, MSi, and Razer among those building machines using it, some 100 designs in all covering both Windows and Chrome operating systems.

In terms of applications that Intel is highlighting for its chip use, in addition to enterprises and more casual consumers, it continues to focus on gaming. No surprise there, given the demands of the most advanced games and gamers today, which have become major drivers for improving compute power. To that end, Intel is making sure its chips are in that mix with the 12th-generation chip.

That has included both investing in gaming companies (such as Razer), as well as working closely with developers to optimize speeds on its processors. Intel said that work with Hitman 3, for example, so that its chips could support the audio and graphics processing in the game increased frame rates by up to 8%. 

“Tuning games to achieve maximum performance can be daunting,” says Maurizio de Pascale, chief technology officer at IO Interactive, in a statement. “But partnering with Intel and leveraging their decades of expertise has yielded fantastic results – especially optimizing for the powerful 12th Gen Intel Core processors. As an example, anyone who plays on a laptop

Content application remains another major part of the market for Intel, with customers building software and hardware optimized for its chips including Adobe, Autodesk, Foundry Blender, Dolby, Dassault, Magix and more. Indeed, the processor now sites at the centre of all of these as they live as digital activities. They also represent a large number of verticals that Intel can target, including product designers, engineers, broadcasting and streaming, architects, creators, scientific visualization.

The 22 new processors getting unveiled are coming in both 65 watt and 35 watt varieties. Alongside the higher wattage (and thus higher energy consuming) chip, Intel also launched a new Laminar cooler.

Another strand of Intel’s work over the last several years has been to approach the specifications of computers running its chips in a more holistic way to integrate what it is building with where it can be put to use, by way of its Evo platform and Project Athena. Intel said that there are not more than 100 co-engineered designs using the 12th-generation chips based on these, ranging from foldable displays to more standard laptops, with many of them launching during the first half of this year.

Evo specifications already cover responsiveness, battery life, instant wake, and fast charge, and Intel said that a new addition to that range will be a new parameter, “intelligent collaboration”, which will be focused on how many of us are using computers today, for remote collaboration, videoconferencing and the features that make it better such as AI-based noise cancellation, better WiFi usage, and enhanced camera and other imaging effects. This will be likely where its $100-$150 million acquisition of screen mirroring tech provider Screenovate, which it confirmed in December, will fit.

At a time when Intel continues to face a lot of competition from the likes of AMD and Nvidia, and Apple makes yet more moves to distance itself from the company, continuing to move ahead and reinforce the partners that it does have, and build an ecosystem around that, is the strategy that the company will continue to pursue, as long as it keeps up its end of the innovation bargain.

“Microsoft and Intel have a long history of partnering together to deliver incredible performance and seamless experiences to people all over the world,” said Panos Panay, chief product officer at Microsoft, in a statement. “Whether playing the latest AAA title, encoding 8K video or developing complex geological models, the combination of Windows 11 and the new 12th-gen Intel Core mobile processors means you’re getting a powerhouse experience.”

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 this year 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 suggestions about new apps and games to try, too.

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

This Week in Apps is taking a vacation over the holidays, so this week’s update is briefer than usual!

Top Story

900+ app publishers will see their first $1 million in 2021

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Sensor Tower is forecasting that the number of publishers set to see their first $1 million (or more) in annual net income in 2021 has nearly doubled since 2016. This year, more than 900 publishers will reach this milestone, up nearly 91% from the 475 who hit the milestone in 2016. This 900+ breaks down to 581 on iOS and 325 on Google Play, it notes.

Image Credits: Sensor TowerBroken down by category, mobile game publishers continued to account for the largest percentage of iOS apps that hit the $1 million milestone in 2021, with a 32% share of the overall total. Social networking apps followed with an 11% share, then Entertainment, Health & Fitness and Productivity apps, at 7%, 7% and 6%, respectively. On Google Play, games also led but accounted for even more of the milestone-achieving apps, with a 43% share.

However, the figure represents a decline from last year, when 1,003 publishers hit their first net $1 million in global revenue — a change that Sensor Tower chalks up to a normalization of consumer behavior after the pandemic drove installs up during 2020 to outsized levels. Consumers in 2021 experimented with fewer new apps than during the height of the pandemic, the report noted.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

China’s laws impact the number of available apps

The South China Morning Post this week reported on how China’s big tech crackdown is playing out across the Chinese app stores. According to its findings, the number of available mobile apps has fallen 40% over the past three years as new data laws and other clean-up campaigns went into effect. By the numbers, Chinese app stores had 4.52 million apps in December 2018, but as of October 2021, that had dropped to just 2.78 million. It also noted the biggest declines took place over the course of this year, as Beijing further cracked down on big tech with its new data privacy laws.

The Netherlands orders Apple to allow dating apps to offer alternative payments

The Netherlands is the latest country looking to regulate the app stores with a new ruling, as reported by Reuters, that says Apple has violated the country’s competition laws via its in-app purchase policies. However, the case in this market is unique because it’s only applying to a segment of the app store — specifically, dating apps. (Match, of course, has been a significant Apple critic and has been pushing for new payment policies both in the U.S. and abroad.) The Netherlands’ Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) says that Apple has until January 15 to implement App Store changes. If the company fails to comply, it could be fined up to €50 million ($56.6 million), the report notes. Apple has appealed the ruling.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• An unconfirmed leak by a French site claims iOS 16 will not support the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus and the iPhone SE 2016.
• Apple stopped signing iOS 15.1.1, meaning there will be no more downgrading options available now.

Platforms: Google

• Google announced the number of users engaging with Android apps on Chrome OS devices was up 50% year-over-year in 2021, while Chrome OS grew over 92% YoY.
• Amazon finally fixed its broken Amazon Appstore on Android 12 devices, which had been preventing users from using its app — or apps installed via its app — for over a month.
• The Google Play Store added filters that let you narrow down searches by devices, like Android TV or Wear OS.

Social

Image Credits: Insider Intelligence

• A 2022 forecast notes TikTok is the world’s third-largest social network, on track for 755 million monthly users next year. This estimate comes from Insider Intelligence (formerly eMarketer), which uses its own system for counting MAUs to be more consistent across companies, while also weeding out fake accounts.
• TikTok will launch a delivery-only restaurant business across the U.S. in March to promote some of the most viral food dishes on its app, posted by TikTok influencers and creators. The company said it’s not going into the food business itself, but is partnering with Virtual Dining Concepts and Grubhub on the TikTok Kitchen promotion.

Messaging

Image Credits: Meta

• Facebook Messenger rolled out holiday features, including new AR effects from beauty influencers like Bretman Rock and Ashley Strong; plus holiday-themed word effects; a New Year’s Eve chat theme; various seasonal soundmojis, backgrounds and “gift wrap” on Messenger using Facebook Pay on Android. Messenger Kids is launching a Santa chat experience and other games and AR effects.
• WhatsApp is testing a new interface for voice calls and other features on iOS and Android. The site WABetaInfo spotted the new interface under development, which offers some UI tweaks and new indicators for end-to-end encryption.

Streaming & Entertainment

• TikTok is being accused of violating open source licenses in its new Live Studio Windows app. The app is allegedly using code from the Open Broadcaster Software project’s OBS Studio app and other open-source projects without following the licensing terms.
• The Verge wants to know what happened to Spotify HiFi? The high-end version of the streaming service was supposed to roll out this year, but never did. What gives?

Government & Policy

• Apple is seeking a dismissal of an India apps market antitrust case, citing its small market share in the country where the Android mobile OS is dominant.

Funding and M&A (and IPOs)

Zepto, a 10-minute grocery delivery app operating in India, raised $100 million in Series C funding, led by Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund. With the round, the app has now more than doubled its valuation to $570 million, up from $225 million in less than two months ago.

Rocket Companies, maker of Rocket Mortgage, acquired Truebill, a personal finance app that helps consumers manage their bills, subscriptions and budgets. The deal was for $1.275 billion, up from Truebill’s final private valuation of $530 million following its last round.

 Amsterdam-based tennis and padel court booking app Playtomic raised €56 million in Series C funding led by GP Bullhound after its monthly bookings surpassed 1 million in November 2021, up nearly 3x from a year ago. The app reaches 1+ million users across 34 countries.

Taptap Send raised $65 million in Series B funding led by Spark Capital to further grow its cross-border remittances app, which now covers 20 countries, including those in less developed markets.

Lapse, a Dispo-like app that lets users take photos that “develop” 24 hours later, raised $11 million in seed funding led by Octopus Ventures and GV.

Gaming company Rec Room raised $145 million in funding led by Coatue Management, for its cross-platform game that runs on mobile, PC, game consoles and VR headsets. The company has grown its user base from 2 million in March to now 37 million, and is valued at $3.5 billion.

Spotify acquired podcast tech company Whooshkaa, which turns radio programming into on-demand podcasts. The tech will be integrated with Spotify’s Megaphone.

Vietnam-based MoMo, a super app offering money transfers, insurance, investments, donations and more, raised $200 million in Series E funding led by Mizhuo Bank. The round values the business at $2+ billion.

Stockholm-based Voi, an app offering e-scooter and e-bike rentals, raised $115 million in Series D funding led by Raine Group and VNV Global. The company, which has scooters in 80 European cities, will next begin preparing for an IPO.

Triller, a one-time TikTok rival turned live events app, announced plans to merge with adtech company SeaChange to take the two companies public at a ~$5 billion valuation.

Indian e-commerce startup Snapdeal filed for an IPO, which seeks to raise $165 million. The 11-year-old company, which offers its services online and via app, competes with Amazon and Flipkart in India, and has shifted its focus in recent years to serve consumers in smaller towns and cities.

Downloads

Wombo Dream

Image Credits: Wombo

Known for an AI-powered lip-syncing app, Wombo’s latest app, Dream, is tapping into AI to create art. (Read TechCrunch’s review by Natasha Lomas here). To use the app, you type in what you want to create a picture of, then choose a style — like vibrant, pastel, dark fantasy, steampunk, etc. Dream will then spend a few seconds making the finished composition — some of which look better than others. You can repeat the process until it delivers a result you like. The app has already seen over 10 million images created by users and has been downloaded over 1 million times across iOS and Android.

Amazon says it has fixed an issue with its Amazon Appstore that was causing issues with app launches for customers who had upgraded to Android 12 on their mobile devices. Earlier this month, reports began to circulate that Amazon’s Appstore was still not functional on Android 12 following its fall release. Users reported that not only did the Appstore itself not work, the apps and games they had installed from the Appstore also no longer worked.

The company had been responding to customer complaints in Amazon’s digital and device forums, only to say that its technical team was still investigating the issue. But things came to a head when an article by Liliputing.com detailing the problems got traction and was picked up by a wider range of news sites, forcing Amazon to publicly comment on the matter. It then said it was working on a fix that impacted “app performance and launches” that had affected the “small number of Amazon Appstore users that have upgraded to Android 12.” The company noted at the time the issue didn’t impact Amazon Fire TV devices or Amazon Fire tablets.

On Friday, Amazon said a fix has gone live, but did not detail what had gone wrong or how the issues had been addressed, more specifically.

“We have released a fix for an issue impacting app launches for Amazon Appstore customers that have upgraded to Android 12 on their mobile devices,” a company spokesperson said, in a statement shared with media. “We are contacting customers with steps to update their Appstore experience. We are sorry for any disruption this has caused,” they added.

There had been some speculation that the issues with the Appstore had been related to its built-in DRM and Android 12, given that one of the workarounds a user discovered involved decompiling the Android app APK file then commenting out the lines related to the DRM, among other technical steps. (Clearly, this was not a fix mainstream users could take advantage of, however.)

Amazon’s failure to address this issue for multiple weeks highlights how little traction its Appstore has on Android devices, where few users see any need to buy apps outside of Google Play, as well as how slow the Android upgrade cycle can be. It simply was not a priority for Amazon to address the issues with any sense of urgency, it seemed.

These days, Amazon’s focus with its Appstore is instead on how it can be used to deliver apps to Windows 11 users. Microsoft and Amazon this year agreed to partner on a new initiative that would allow Amazon to offer its third-party app store on the Microsoft Store, allowing Windows users to download Android apps to their PCs.

The European Parliament has agreed its negotiating position on draft legislation to put limits on how Big Tech can operate with the aim of rebooting competition and fair dealing in digital markets.

The proposal also takes aim at so-called ‘killer acquisitions’ where powerful platforms buy up smaller rivals or startups to choke off alternative services before they have a chance to scale, limiting competition and consumer choice.

MEPs overwhelmingly backed the legislative plan in a plenary vote yesterday — while also adding their own tweaks, including pushing provisions intended to tackle damaging default settings.

The European Council, the body made up of Member States’ representatives, decided its negotiating position last month — meaning action now moves to trilogue discussions between the EU’s co-legislators in January, overseen by the French who hold the rotating Council presidency.

France has said that passing the legislation package is one of its digital priorities for the Council presidency.

Big backing for tackling big tech

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) was presented as a draft proposal by the Commission a year ago, alongside the Digital Services Act (DSA) — a broader update of the bloc’s ecommerce rules which also contains some requirements solely aimed at larger platforms, along with provisions that apply across the board to the in-scope digital services.

So while the DSA is expected to require time for all side to reach a compromise (and won’t now face a plenary vote until January), the DMA has been moving at a fair clip through the EU’s co-legislative process — as regional lawmakers find plenty of common ground over the need to rein in Big Tech.

With the DMA, the bloc’s lawmakers are responding to concerns that the biggest tech companies hold an overly commanding ‘gatekeeper’ role over digital markets and Internet users which has led to abusive business practices that harm competition and exploit consumers.

The Commission drew on its experience of antitrust enforcement against tech giants like Google in shaping the draft proposal — which has faced a string of penalties in the EU in recent years.

EU lawmakers’ hope is that a list of upfront ‘dos and don’ts’ for tech giants — combined with centralized enforcement by the Commission itself — will be able to reset digital markets and ensure they are fair and open. 

It’s notable that the text approved by a plenary vote of the Parliament yesterday received 642 votes in favour, 8 against and 46 abstentions — suggesting there is broad backing across the political spectrum for clipping the wings of Big Tech.

For a little comparative context, back in 2017, a plenary vote in the Parliament on a different piece of digital legislation — the ePrivacy Regulation — draw far less support, with of the (then) 618 MEPs only 318 voting for the draft proposal vs 280 voting against. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the ePrivacy update remains stalled even now.

Progress on updating ePrivacy has been blocked by ferocious lobbying from a number of sectors — and also by tech giants such as Google who, in a July 31, 2019 memo which recently came to light via antitrust litigation in the US, can be seen congratulating itself on its “success” at “slowing down and delaying” the regulation, including by “working behind the scenes hand in hand with the other [tech giants]”.

So it’s perhaps rather fitting that the giants that make up ‘GAFAM’ (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) are now facing bespoke legislation aimed at reducing their market power and — ultimately — shrinking how much resource they have to lobby against laws they’d prefer not to exist.

Certainly it looks like a smart move by the Commission to put the DMA and DSA into separate legislative packages.

That has made it harder for tech giants to resort to their typical astroturfing techniques — whereby they draw on an extensive, opaque network of industry associations and thinktanks they help fund, cloaking direct lobbying against tighter regulation of their own business models by projecting their talking points through a litany of worthy sounding third parties.

MEPs target damaging defaults

MEPs have tweaked the Commission proposal in a number of ways — expanding the scope of the DMA so it will also apply to web browsers, virtual assistants and connected TVs, in addition to the original blend of online intermediation services, social networks, search engines, operating systems, online advertising services, cloud computing, and video-sharing services — or rather the subset of those companies that meet the relevant criteria to be designated “gatekeepers”.

Parliamentarians also beefed up the criteria for being designated a gatekeeper — increasing the quantitative thresholds to €8BN in annual turnover in the European Economic Area (EEA) and a market cap of €80BN. Which may be intended to avoid fewer European tech giants from falling into scope (e.g. Spotify).

To be considered gatekeepers under the DMA a company must also provide a core platform service in at least three EU countries and have at least 45M monthly end users, and/or 10,000+ business users.

The parliament gave it fulsome support to the roster of changes voted on by the IMCO committee last month — which also includes restrictions on killer acquisitions in the case of systematic non-compliance; additional requirements on the use of data for targeted or micro-targeted advertising (but not a full prohibition on tracking-based ads, as some MEPs have been pushing for); and some interesting looking interoperability provisions.

MEPs want users to have the option to be able to uninstall pre-installed software applications that big tech bundles with a core platform service — and crucially want that to be possible “at any stage”.

A number of Google search engine rivals had been pressing MEPs to beef up the DMA to tackle damaging default settings.

And in a tweet yesterday DuckDuckGo founder, Gabe Weinberg, said the parliament had taken “a big step” by introducing what he billed as “a choice screen mandate” to the DMA’s mix.

In recent years, the non-tracking Google search engine rival has been pressing for regulatory intervention to ensure true “one-click” competition, arguing that regulation must ensure tech giants don’t simply stack the deck by making it ridiculously convoluted for users to switch away from their own services.

“We’re now looking forward to the final stage of talks. If done right, the DMA will let people more easily choose their search engine default,” Weinberg added.

Commenting in a statement on the plenary vote, DMA rapporteur and MEP Andreas Schwab, said: “Today’s adoption of the DMA negotiating mandate sends a strong signal: The European Parliament stands against unfair business practices used by digital giants. We will make sure that digital markets are open and competitive. This is good for consumers, good for businesses and good for digital innovation. Our message is clear: The EU will enforce the rules of the social market economy also in the digital sphere, and this means that lawmakers dictate the rules of competition, not digital giants.”

The European Parliament has agreed its negotiating position on draft legislation to put limits on how Big Tech can operate with the aim of rebooting competition and fair dealing in digital markets.

The proposal also takes aim at so-called ‘killer acquisitions’ where powerful platforms buy up smaller rivals or startups to choke off alternative services before they have a chance to scale, limiting competition and consumer choice.

MEPs overwhelmingly backed the legislative plan in a plenary vote yesterday — while also adding their own tweaks, including pushing provisions intended to tackle damaging default settings.

The European Council, the body made up of Member States’ representatives, decided its negotiating position last month — meaning action now moves to trilogue discussions between the EU’s co-legislators in January, overseen by the French who hold the rotating Council presidency.

France has said that passing the legislation package is one of its digital priorities for the Council presidency.

Big backing for tackling big tech

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) was presented as a draft proposal by the Commission a year ago, alongside the Digital Services Act (DSA) — a broader update of the bloc’s ecommerce rules which also contains some requirements solely aimed at larger platforms, along with provisions that apply across the board to the in-scope digital services.

So while the DSA is expected to require time for all side to reach a compromise (and won’t now face a plenary vote until January), the DMA has been moving at a fair clip through the EU’s co-legislative process — as regional lawmakers find plenty of common ground over the need to rein in Big Tech.

With the DMA, the bloc’s lawmakers are responding to concerns that the biggest tech companies hold an overly commanding ‘gatekeeper’ role over digital markets and Internet users which has led to abusive business practices that harm competition and exploit consumers.

The Commission drew on its experience of antitrust enforcement against tech giants like Google in shaping the draft proposal — which has faced a string of penalties in the EU in recent years.

EU lawmakers’ hope is that a list of upfront ‘dos and don’ts’ for tech giants — combined with centralized enforcement by the Commission itself — will be able to reset digital markets and ensure they are fair and open. 

It’s notable that the text approved by a plenary vote of the Parliament yesterday received 642 votes in favour, 8 against and 46 abstentions — suggesting there is broad backing across the political spectrum for clipping the wings of Big Tech.

For a little comparative context, back in 2017, a plenary vote in the Parliament on a different piece of digital legislation — the ePrivacy Regulation — draw far less support, with of the (then) 618 MEPs only 318 voting for the draft proposal vs 280 voting against. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the ePrivacy update remains stalled even now.

Progress on updating ePrivacy has been blocked by ferocious lobbying from a number of sectors — and also by tech giants such as Google who, in a July 31, 2019 memo which recently came to light via antitrust litigation in the US, can be seen congratulating itself on its “success” at “slowing down and delaying” the regulation, including by “working behind the scenes hand in hand with the other [tech giants]”.

So it’s perhaps rather fitting that the giants that make up ‘GAFAM’ (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) are now facing bespoke legislation aimed at reducing their market power and — ultimately — shrinking how much resource they have to lobby against laws they’d prefer not to exist.

Certainly it looks like a smart move by the Commission to put the DMA and DSA into separate legislative packages.

That has made it harder for tech giants to resort to their typical astroturfing techniques — whereby they draw on an extensive, opaque network of industry associations and thinktanks they help fund, cloaking direct lobbying against tighter regulation of their own business models by projecting their talking points through a litany of worthy sounding third parties.

MEPs target damaging defaults

MEPs have tweaked the Commission proposal in a number of ways — expanding the scope of the DMA so it will also apply to web browsers, virtual assistants and connected TVs, in addition to the original blend of online intermediation services, social networks, search engines, operating systems, online advertising services, cloud computing, and video-sharing services — or rather the subset of those companies that meet the relevant criteria to be designated “gatekeepers”.

Parliamentarians also beefed up the criteria for being designated a gatekeeper — increasing the quantitative thresholds to €8BN in annual turnover in the European Economic Area (EEA) and a market cap of €80BN. Which may be intended to avoid fewer European tech giants from falling into scope (e.g. Spotify).

To be considered gatekeepers under the DMA a company must also provide a core platform service in at least three EU countries and have at least 45M monthly end users, and/or 10,000+ business users.

The parliament gave it fulsome support to the roster of changes voted on by the IMCO committee last month — which also includes restrictions on killer acquisitions in the case of systematic non-compliance; additional requirements on the use of data for targeted or micro-targeted advertising (but not a full prohibition on tracking-based ads, as some MEPs have been pushing for); and some interesting looking interoperability provisions.

MEPs want users to have the option to be able to uninstall pre-installed software applications that big tech bundles with a core platform service — and crucially want that to be possible “at any stage”.

A number of Google search engine rivals had been pressing MEPs to beef up the DMA to tackle damaging default settings.

And in a tweet yesterday DuckDuckGo founder, Gabe Weinberg, said the parliament had taken “a big step” by introducing what he billed as “a choice screen mandate” to the DMA’s mix.

In recent years, the non-tracking Google search engine rival has been pressing for regulatory intervention to ensure true “one-click” competition, arguing that regulation must ensure tech giants don’t simply stack the deck by making it ridiculously convoluted for users to switch away from their own services.

“We’re now looking forward to the final stage of talks. If done right, the DMA will let people more easily choose their search engine default,” Weinberg added.

Commenting in a statement on the plenary vote, DMA rapporteur and MEP Andreas Schwab, said: “Today’s adoption of the DMA negotiating mandate sends a strong signal: The European Parliament stands against unfair business practices used by digital giants. We will make sure that digital markets are open and competitive. This is good for consumers, good for businesses and good for digital innovation. Our message is clear: The EU will enforce the rules of the social market economy also in the digital sphere, and this means that lawmakers dictate the rules of competition, not digital giants.”

Meta (formerly Facebook) has found a new way to avoid the app stores’ commissions on in-app purchases with the launch of a new website where people can buy “Stars” — the virtual items that allow fans to express their support for favorite creators during Facebook videos and live streams. Typically, Stars are bought as in-app purchases on mobile devices where they’re subject to a revenue share with the app store platform provider — meaning, Apple or Google. But when fans purchase Stars via the new Facebook website, they’ll use Facebook Pay, not Apple or Google’s payment mechanisms.

This will allow fans to “get more Star for their money at lower rates,” notes a Facebook announcement. That appears to be true for the time being at least, as Facebook is offering “bonus” Stars with every purchase. That means, for example, when you spend $9.99 on 530 Stars, you’ll now get another 420 Stars as a bonus when purchased through the website. Via the Facebook mobile app and in-app purchases, however, you would only get the 530 Stars. (Note: I am referencing the website bonus amounts that appeared when I loaded the site in my browser. The Facebook blog post features a screenshot that shows different bonus amounts. We’ve asked for clarity on this. Regardless, these bonuses mean you get more Stars for your money via the web.)

Image Credits: Facebook

There are Bonus Stars available at a variety of increments, with the number of extra Stars increasing alongside your purchase amount. You can purchase as few as 45 Stars (with a bonus of 35 Stars) for $0.99 or as many as 6,400 Stars (with a bonus of 3,600 Stars) for $99.99, according to the website as it appears now. (See above.)

But if the bonuses are removed, there’s no advantage to using a website over in-app purchases, as the rates appear to otherwise be the same as you’d otherwise pay.

Once purchased through the Stars Store website, the Stars are deposited into people’s virtual wallets so they can be distributed to eligible creators during their Facebook Live or on-demand videos. Creators can reward their fans who use Stars however they want — they may give them a shoutout on the video or some other perk in line with their style and content.

Image Credits: Facebook

This isn’t the first time Facebook has found a way to work around the app stores’ revenue share requirements. Last month, Facebook introduced custom subscription links for creators on iOS which allow them to accept direct payments, avoiding Apple’s controversial 30% cut. This system was possible because — for the time being at least — Facebook isn’t taking its own cut of these transactions. That allows Facebook to leverage a currently acceptable means of avoiding commissions as detailed in Apple’s App Store Guidelines (specifically, rule 3.2.1 which says individuals may make monetary gifts to other individuals if 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. Clubhouse took advantage of this carve-out as well for its in-app tipping system.)

The ability to buy Stars via the web is another interesting move — and one that could shift a number of transactions off Facebook’s mobile app and in-app purchases once fans realize there’s a way to buy more stars for less money. Apple is supposed to soon allow app developers to point to other means of making purchases outside the app as a result of the Epic Games ruling, but Apple is currently asking the court to delay when that injunction goes into effect after its first attempt was denied.

Image Credits: Facebook

Facebook’s announcement of the Stars Store website was one of many updates it’s making during its month-long “Stars Fest” taking place in December. The company says it’s also testing using Stars in more places — like videos on the News Feed, the Facebook Watch feed, the Gaming tab, and starting next year, Facebook Reels.

It’s also launching something called “Stars Party,” which is a new way for fans to send Stars together during live streams. A countdown timer will appear giving the community 5 minutes to come together and hit a Stars goal. Creators who complete a Stars Party will receive a $50 bonus for each one from Dec. 22, 2021 — Jan. 3, 2022, Facebook says.

As part of the company’s $1 billion creator fund, it’s also investing in a Stars “Double bonus,” which runs through March 31. During this time, Meta will match some creators’ Stars earnings, up to $750 a month. This could allow creators to earn up to $3,750 in bonus payments. However, the program is invite-only. Facebook will also give $3 million in free Stars to people so they can try out the feature during live videos.

Elsewhere during Stars Fest, the company is offering limited-time virtual gifts and badges, special live programming from a variety of creators, financial incentives for creators to go live, and more.

On Wednesday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri is set to testify before the Senate for the first time on the issue of how the app is impacting teens’ mental health, following the recent testimonies from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen which have positioned the company as caring more about profits than user safety. Just ahead of that hearing, Instagram has announced a new set of safety features, including its first set of parental controls.

The changes were introduced through a company blog post, authored by Mosseri.

Not all the features are brand-new and some are smaller expansions on earlier safety features the company already had in the works.

However, the bigger news today is Instagram’s plan to launch its first set of parental control features in March. These features will allow parents and guardians to see how much time teens spend on Instagram and will allow them to set screen time limits. Teens will also be given an option to alert parents if they report someone. These tools are an opt-in experience — teens can choose not to send alerts, and there’s no requirement that teens and parents have to use parental controls.

The parental controls, as described, are also less powerful than those on rival TikTok, where parents can lock children’s accounts into restricted experience, block access to search, as well as control their child’s visibility on the platform, and who can view their content, comment or message them. Screen time limits, meanwhile, are already offered by the platforms themselves — that is, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile operating systems offer similar controls. In other words, Instagram isn’t doing much here in terms of innovative parental controls, but notes it will “add more options over time.”

Another new feature was previously announced. Instagram earlier this month launched a test of its new “Take a Break” feature which allows users to remind themselves to take a break from using the app after either 10, 20, or 30 minutes, depending on their preference. This feature will now officially launch in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Image Credits: Instagram

Unlike on rival TikTok, where videos that push users to get off the app appear in the main feed after a certain amount of time, Instagram’s “Take a Break” feature is opt-in only. The company will begin to suggest to users that they set these reminders, but it will not require they do so. That gives Instagram the appearance of doing something to combat app addiction, without going so far as to actually make “Take a Break” enabled by default for its users, or like TikTok, regularly remind users to get off the app.

Another feature is an expansion of earlier efforts around distancing teens from having contact with adults. Already, Instagram began to default teens’ accounts to private, restrict target advertising and unwanted adult contact — the latter by using technology to identify “potentially suspicious behavior” from adult users, then preventing them from being able to interact with teens’ accounts. It has also restricted other adult users from being able to contact teens who didn’t already follow them, and sends the teen notifications if the adult is engaging in suspicious behavior while giving them tools for blocking and reporting.

Now it will expand this set of features to also switch off the ability for adults to tag or mention teens who don’t follow them, and to include their content in Reels Remixes (video content), or Guides. These will be the new default settings, and will roll out next year.

Image Credits: Instagram

Instagram says it will also be stricter about what’s recommended to teens in sections of the app like Search, Explore, Hashtags, and Suggested Accounts.

But in describing the action it’s taking, the company seems to have not yet made a hard decision on what will be changed. Instead, Instagram says it’s “exploring” the idea of limiting content in Explore, using a newer set of sensitive content control features launched in July. The company says it’s considering expanding the “Limit Even More” — the strictest setting — to include not just Explore, but also Search, Hashtags, Reels and Suggested Accounts.

Image Credits: Instagram

It also says if it sees people are dwelling on a topic for a while it may nudge them to other topics, but doesn’t share details on this feature, as it’s under development. Presumably, this is meant to address the issues raised about teens who are exploring potentially harmful content, like those that could trigger eating disorders, anxiety, or depression. In practice, the feature could also be used to direct users to more profitable content for the app — like posts from influencers who drive traffic to monetizable products, like Instagram Shopping, LIVE videos, Reels, and others.

Instagram will also roll out tools this January that allows users to bulk delete photos and videos from their account to clean up their digital footprint. The feature will be offered as part of a new hub where users can view and manage their activity on the app.

Image Credits: Instagram

This addition is being positioned as a safety feature, as older users may be able to better understand what it means to share personal content online; and they may have regrets over their older posts. However, a bulk deletion option is really the sort of feature that any content management system (that’s behaving ethically) should offer its users — meaning not just Instagram, but also Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

The company said these are only some of the features it has in development and noted it’s still working on its new solution to verify people’s ages on Instagram using technology.

“As always, I’m grateful to the experts and researchers who lend us their expertise in critical areas like child development, teen mental health and online safety,” Mosseri wrote, “and I continue to welcome productive collaboration with lawmakers and policymakers on our shared goal of creating an online world that both benefits and protects many generations to come,” he added. 

Meta (formerly Facebook) recently announced its plans to delay the rollout of end-to-end encryption across its messaging service until sometime in 2023, citing concerns from child safety advocates who warned the change would shield abusers from detection. Today, the company offered more details about how it plans to approach the need for harm prevention alongside the eventual rollout of end-to-end encryption.

While technology would be able to scan unencrypted private messages in order to detect malicious patterns of behavior, that’s not the case in an end-to-end encrypted environment, Meta explained. Instead, the company plans to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to look at the non-encrypted parts of its platform, like user profiles and photos, for other signals that could indicate malicious activity. For example, if an adult set up new profiles and kept trying to reach minors they didn’t know, or if they began to message a large number of strangers, the company could intervene to take action, a Meta blog post said. 

Meta also recently rolled out a series of increased protections for accounts belonging to minors, including defaulting them to private or “friends only” accounts across Facebook and Instagram. It also this year introduced features that would restrict adult Instagram users from being able to contact teens who didn’t already follow them. And on Messenger, it’s now popping up safety notices that provide tips on spotting suspicious activity and how to take actions like blocking, reporting, ignoring or restricting other users, developed using machine learning. Over the past month, the tips have been seen by more than 100 million users. Meta says this sort of feature would still be able to work in an end-to-end encrypted environment, too.

The company additionally cited the variety of user-facing features that allow them to better control who can reach them through their inbox. Creators who are in search of increased reach may want fewer controls, but will want to filter for abuse and spam, while people with private accounts may want to fully restrict contact only to people they know. Other messaging features blur images and videos and block links from messaging requests (conversations started by people you don’t know).

Meta also noted that, earlier this year, it made a change to its reporting features that makes it easier to report content for violating child exploitation policies by adding a choice that says “involves a child” during the reporting flow, and made reporting more accessible. The company says it’s seen a nearly 50% year-over-year increase in reporting as a result. When messages are reported, that portion of the conversation is decrypted so the company can take action — like reporting attempted child exploitation to law enforcement or NCMEC, for example. Meta says it’s also now warning users that resharing child exploitation images, even in outrage, is harmful and launched a “report it, don’t share it” campaign to educate users.

The company had already spelled out much of these procedures and plans in the context of responding to regulator inquiries and backlash from child safety advocates who are concerned that child exploitation will increase in an end-to-end encrypted environment. But Meta has maintained that the combination of scanning users’ non-encrypted data and existing reporting features will allow it to take action on abuse, even when messages are encrypted. In fact, this is how it manages to detect abuse on WhatsApp, which already uses end-to-end encryption. It recently said, too, that a review of historical cases showed it would have still be able to provide information to law enforcement, even if the chats in question had been end-to-end encrypted.

The issues around encrypted messaging go beyond whether or not Meta should be allowed by regulators to roll it out. While Meta’s post today seems to be arguing that E2EE won’t prevent the company from keeping users safe, a former Meta employee recently accused the company of planning to move to an E2EE system on an “absurdly accelerated timeline,”  which led to resignations from child safety team members who understand child safety protections would have become demonstrably worse, due the lack of a roadmap and plan for protections in an E2EE environment. The specific issues the employee, David Thiel, raised in his Twitter thread were not addressed by Meta’s post, which oversimplifies what’s needed to truly create a safe environment for users while also allowing for encrypted communications.

Fairphone, the Dutch social enterprise dedicated to making consumer electronics (more) sustainable and ethical, including by supporting repairability so that users can hold onto their hardware for longer, has announced public testing of Android 10 for the six-year-old Fairphone 2.

Owners of the modular handset that was first released back in 2015, running Android 5, should expect to be able to upgrade to Android 10 (released date: 2019) in early 2022, Fairphone said today, announcing the beta rollout of the upgrade.

Fairphone stopped producing (but not supporting) the Fairphone 2 back in 2018 — going on to release the Fairphone 3 (in 2019); the Fairphone 3+ (in 2020; also available as a modular upgrade to the 3); and, earlier this fall, the Fairphone 4, its first 5G handset — which it said would be supported until at least 2025.

Given the Fairphone 2’s impending update to Android 10 next year — which will mean it will have been supported for a total of seven years — 2025 looks like a conservative estimate of how long Fairphone 4 owners should expect to receive software support.

Fairphone says it collaborated with its community of users for the Android 10 upgrade project — and with a software developer in India, Bharath Ravi Prakash, which it says worked as a volunteer open source dev — and by doing that says it was able to streamline the process and shrink the time required to carry out the upgrade.

So while the prior Fairphone 2 OS update (to Android 9) took 18 months, this time the process has been condensed to 10 months.

Google, meanwhile, has gone on to release Android 11 (2020) and Android 12 (last month) — for a sense of how far behind the Fairphone 2 upgrades are trailing the latest OS release.

“The company learned a lot from the Android 9 upgrade and although still complex, Android 10 was more predictable than Android 9,” Fairphone notes in a press release which also quotes its head of software longevity & IT, Agnes Crepet, who writes: “Our unique approach to software has allowed us to help our users keep their devices for as long as possible. We’re pleased to be able to provide our Fairphone 2 community with yet another software upgrade, reaching our goal to provide at least five years of support from launch for our phones and with the Android 10 upgrade, we’re going beyond that to seven years of support. We are constantly raising the bar for ourselves and the industry, showing that doing things more sustainably in software is possible.”

Seven years’ support puts Fairphone into Apple iPhone software support timespans. But of course the average Android-based handset can expect fair fewer years of software love — typically Android smartphones only get around three years’ support. So it’s a major achievement.

And while Fairphone may only now be catching up to Apple on the software longevity front it is already years ahead of Cupertino in another respect: Hardware sustainability through repairability via modular construction and offering direct-to-consumer spare parts.

Earlier this month Apple announced that, starting next year, it would kick off a ‘Self Service Repair’ program — shipping spare parts and repair tools to iPhone and Mac users to let them perform basic repairs at home.

It’s by no means full modularity from the company that has — historically — loved a hermetically sealed, stupidly thin, often literally glued shut box but it is a small step in a more sustainable direction. And one that Fairphone has long pioneered.

After years of ignoring consumer demand for in-app lyrics, particularly in the U.S., Spotify announced today it will make a new Lyrics feature available to all global users, both Free and Premium, across platforms. The feature is powered by lyrics provider Musixmatch, and expands on a prior deal Spotify had with the company to offer lyrics to users in India, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Last year, Spotify introduced real-time lyrics that sync to the music to users in 26 worldwide markets, after initially testing the feature in 2019. This was the first time 22 of the 26 markets had ever gained any form of lyrics support, the company said at the time. That deal later expanded to 28 markets. Spotify users in Japan have also had access to lyrics through a standalone deal with SyncPower.

But users in other markets have only had access to “Behind the Lyrics,” a feature launched in 2016 in partnership with Genius which offered lyrics interspersed with trivia about the song, its meaning, the artist and other commentary. Meanwhile, through Spotify’s community feedback forum, thousands of users over the years expressed to the company they would prefer a feature that provided real-time lyrics, instead of lyrics that are interrupted with facts and other background information.

Those users will now get their wish.

Spotify confirmed to TechCrunch it will be sunsetting “Behind the Lyrics” to make way for the new Lyrics feature.

Lyrics will be available across platforms from the “Now Playing” view or bar, depending on the platform.

On mobile, users can swipe up from the “Now Playing” screen to see the track’s lyrics scroll by in real time as the song is playing. On the desktop app, you can click the microphone icon from the “Now Playing” bar instead. And on the Spotify TV app, you’ll navigate to the top-right corner of the “Now Playing” view to enable Lyrics from the lyrics button.

The company says the feature will be available on the big screen via its app for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung, Roku, LG, Sky and Comcast.

The new feature also offers built-in sharing from an included button on the bottom of the screen on mobile, which allows users to select the lyrics they want to share and the destination.

There is no difference in the Lyrics experience for Free or Premium users, we’re told.

Real-time lyrics on music apps have had a complicated history. When lyrics aren’t provided by music publishers, companies turn to a third-party provider. But those providers don’t always play fair. Google, for example, was accused by Genius in 2019 for plagiarizing its lyrics collection, which Genius tracked by cleverly embedding secret codes into its lyrics to spell out “red-handed.” Those lyrics later appeared in Google.com search results. But Google said the blame was with its partner, LyricFind. It didn’t drop its partnership, as there are few alternatives for major lyrics deals — the companies tend to work with either Genius, LyricFind or Musixmatch (or a combination).

That’s why it made headlines when Apple in 2018 announced a partnership with Genius for lyrics across thousands of its top songs, and two years later became the exclusive web player for Genius. Among other services, Pandora says it works with LyricFind and Amazon works with both LyricFind and Musixmatch, its website states.

With this expansion, Lyrics will now be available in all markets where Spotify is offered, eliminating one of the big competitive advantages these rivals have over Spotify.

The company says Lyrics will begin rolling out globally starting today.