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Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Spotify will no longer allow developers building new third-party apps with its Web API to access several features, such as song and artist recommendations  —  Spotify will no longer allow developers building third-party apps with its Web API to access several features within the music streaming platform …

Marty Swant / Digiday: US filing: Google sent subpoenas in October 2024 to OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft for the remedies part of the US v. Google search antitrust trial  —  For the remedies phase in the Google search antitrust trial, the giant has subpoenaed three of its biggest rivals — OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft.

Bloomberg: Sources: US FTC has opened an antitrust investigation of Microsoft, focusing on its cloud and software licensing business and its cybersecurity and AI products  —  - FTC has sent detailed information demand to Microsoft  — Questions focus on software licensing, cybersecurity and AI

The Information: Sriram Krishnan, a general partner at a16z, is leaving the firm; source: he has talked to Elon Musk about joining the Department of Government Efficiency  —  Sriram Krishnan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and former product leader at Twitter, is leaving the firm four years after joining …

Financial Times: Sources: Apple held talks with local tech firms to help power Apple Intelligence in China; a CAC official says approval will be difficult without local partners  —  Official at top tech regulator says path to approval easier if iPhone maker finds local partners

Reuters: A government source says Japan's FTC raided Amazon Japan on November 26 suspecting it's inappropriately urging its sellers to lower their prices on its platform  —  Japan's Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday conducted an on-site inspection of Amazon Japan on suspicion of violating anti-monopoly laws, a government source said.

Bloomberg: Sources: Qualcomm's interest in an Intel acquisition has cooled; CEO Cristiano Amon says “right now, at this time, we have not identified any large acquisition”  —  - A deal would likely have been one of the largest ever in tech  — Qualcomm “hasn't identified large acquisition,” CEO said

Casey Newton / Platformer: A look at Bluesky's moderation efforts amid a growth spurt; Bluesky plans to quadruple the size of its contract workforce of content moderators from 25 to 100  —  This article includes references to child sexual abuse material (CSAM).  —  Aaron Rodericks didn't know what he was looking at.

Financial Times: Telegram's H1 2024 unaudited financial docs: $525M in revenue, up 190% YoY, a $335M post-tax profit, and digital assets worth $1.3B, up from $400M at 2023's end  —  Revenues leapt to $525mn in first half of 2024 before chief Pavel Durov was detained over alleged criminality on platform

Reuters: Brazil's antitrust regulator says Apple must allow app developers to link to external payment methods and to offer other in-app payment processing options  —  Brazilian antitrust regulator Cade said on Monday that Apple must lift restrictions on payment methods for in-app purchases …

Wall Street Journal: A ransomware attack on Blue Yonder, a major supply chain software provider, is disrupting operations at Starbucks, the UK's Sainsbury's, and other retailers  —  Attack strikes operations managed through Blue Yonder, one of the largest supply chain technology providers

Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE: N-able, which sells software for managed service providers and spun off from SolarWinds in 2021, acquires DC-based cybersecurity company Adlumin in a $266M deal  —  N-able Inc., a supplier of software for managed service providers, is acquiring partner Adlumin Inc. to expand its cybersecurity portfolio.

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Zoom reports Q3 revenue up 4% YoY to $1.18B, vs. $1.16B est., net income of $207.1M, up from $141.2M, and changes its corporate name to Zoom Communications Inc.  —  Zoom shares were down 4% in extended trading on Monday after the video calling software maker announced strong fiscal third-quarter results …

Teresa Xie / Bloomberg: Tron founder Justin Sun invests $30M in Trump's World Liberty Financial, making him the largest investor in the DeFi project  —  - China-born crypto entrepreneur is project's largest investor  — SEC sued Sun last year for violating securities regulations

Jody Godoy / Reuters: A US judge sets an April 14 trial date for an FTC lawsuit, filed in 2020, alleging that Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp violated antitrust laws  —  Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META.O) will face trial in April over the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's allegations …

Washington Post: The US DOJ and Google made their closing arguments in the ad-market antitrust case before Judge Leonie Brinkema, who expressed some skepticism toward both sides  —  Federal prosecutors say Google's dominance of online advertising illegally hurts consumers and small businesses, while the company says it earned its place by being better.

David Gilmour / Mediaite: Elon Musk appears to confirm that posts containing links in their main text are deprioritized on X, saying it is to stop “lazy linking”  —  Elon Musk confirmed that posts containing links in their main text are deprioritized on X in a revelation that renews criticism that the platform …

Chris Welch / The Verge: Threads begins testing an option to set For You, Following, or a custom feed as the default feed, another improvement seemingly sparked by Bluesky competition  —  Threads will now let users decide what feed they want as their default when opening the app.  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Anthropic announces the Model Context Protocol, an open source standard for connecting AI assistants to data sources  —  Anthropic is proposing a new standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data lives.  —  Called the Model Context Protocol, or MCP for short …

Brendan Greeley / Financial Times: A bitcoin strategic reserve is a resilience strategy for the “hodlers”, not the US state, as a bet on bitcoin is bullish on permanent institutional collapse  —  It is a resilience strategy for the ‘hodlers’, not the US state  —  In July, Cynthia Lummis, a US senator from Wyoming …

New York Times: Sources: Intel, the biggest recipient of money under the CHIPS Act, will see its funding drop to less than $8B from the $8.5B that was announced earlier in 2024  —  The Biden administration is reducing its award to the pioneering chip maker to less than $8 billion, from $8.5 billion.

Robert Triggs / Android Authority: A look at the shortcomings of Google's Tensor SoC for Pixel devices, with four generations failing to impress in key performance and power efficiency metrics  —  Would future Pixels be better of returning to Snapdragon?  —  •  —  Thanks to an unprecedented leak from Google's gchips division …

Washington Post: Sources: Marc Andreessen, Travis Kalanick, and others are involved in Department of Government Efficiency; Andreessen is acting as a networker for recruitment  —  The Tesla executive and the former presidential candidate are meeting with staff and interviewing experts as they plan for massive federal cuts.

Aya Wagatsuma / Bloomberg: Shares of Japan's Fujikura, which specializes in fiber optic cables for data centers, are up 400%+ in 2024 due to the AI boom, leading the Nikkei 225 index  —  - Fujikura has benefited from surging demand for data centers  —  The global boom in AI has turned an obscure 139-year-old Japanese company into a stock-market star.