Ahead of the AI safety summit kicking off in Seoul, South Korea later this week, its co-host the United Kingdom is expanding its own efforts in the field. The AI Safety Institute – a U.K. body set up in November 2023 with the ambitious goal of assessing and addressing risks in AI platforms – said […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Facebook and Instagram are under formal investigation in the European Union over child protection concerns, the Commission announced Thursday. The proceedings follow a raft of requests for information to parent entity Meta since the bloc’s online governance regime, the Digital Services Act (DSA), started applying last August. The development could be significant as the formal […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
CoreWeave has formally opened an office in London that will serve as its European headquarters and home to two new data centers.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The European Union has opened a second formal investigation into TikTok, announcing Monday that it suspects the video sharing platform of breaking the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), an online governance and content moderation framework.
The Commission also said it’s minded to impose interim measures that could force the company to suspend access to the TikTok Lite app in the EU while it investigates concerns the app poses mental health risks to users. Although the EU has given TikTok until April 24 to argue against the measure — meaning the app remains accessible for now.
The development shows the EU cracking down on a product launch it deems risky where it can show a platform has not followed expected procedure.
Penalties for confirmed violations of the DSA can reach up to 6% of global annual turnover. So ByteDance, TikTok’s parent, could face hefty fines if EU enforcers do end up deciding it has broken the law.
While the Commission hasn’t yet confirmed any breaches of the DSA this is the second probe it’s opened on TikTok after announcing an (ongoing) investigation into multiple aspects of its DSA compliance back in February. Since December X has also been under investigation over a range of DSA compliance concerns.
The EU’s first TikTok probe covers multiple issues including the protection of minors, advertising transparency, data access for researchers and the risk management of addictive design and harmful content. Hence it said the latest investigation will specifically focus on TikTok Lite, a version of the video sharing platform which launched earlier this month in France and Spain and includes a mechanism that allows users to earn points for doing things like watching or liking videos.
Points earned through TikTok Lite can be exchanged for things like Amazon gift vouchers or TikTok’s own digital currency for gifting to creators. The Commission is worried this so-called “task and reward” feature could negatively impact the mental health of young users by “stimulating addictive behavior”.
The EU wrote that the second probe will focus on TikTok’s compliance with the DSA obligation to conduct and submit a risk assessment report prior to the launch of the “Task and Reward Lite” program, with a particular focus on negative effects on mental health, including minors’ mental health. It also said it will look into measures taken by TikTok to mitigate those risks.
In a press release announcing the action, the EU said ByteDance failed to produce a risk assessment about the feature which it had asked to see last week — when it gave the company 24 hours to produce the document.
TikTok is regulated under the strictest regime of the DSA, which applies to around half a dozen larger platforms. This extra layer of risk mitigation requirements obliges them to proactively identify and mitigate systemic risks — such as addictive design that could harm users’ mental health.
The EU’s suspicion is ByteDance failed to do this before going ahead and launching TikTok Lite in the two EU markets: Since it failed to submit the risk assessment paperwork on April 18 the Commission wrote that it suspects a “prima facie infringement of the DSA”.
The regulation bakes in a regime of smaller fines for failures to produce requested information on time, as appears to have happened here. ByteDance could therefore face a penalty of up to 1% of its total annual income or worldwide turnover and periodic penalties up to 5% of average daily income or worldwide annual turnover specifically for this type of DSA compliance failure.
Although the Commission has not confirmed whether it plans to fine TikTok for failing to produce the risk assessment document on time as yet.
ByteDance was contacted for a response to the EU’s latest DSA enforcement. But as of press time it had not responded. Update: A TikTok spokesperson said: “We are disappointed with this decision — the TikTok Lite rewards hub is not available to under 18s, and there is a daily limit on video watch tasks. We will continue discussions with the Commission.”
It’s worth noting the EU’s press release raises specific concerns about “the suspected absence of effective age verification mechanisms on TikTok”, which is an area the Commission’s first TikTok investigation is looking into.
Commenting on the Commission’s enforcement action in a statement, Thierry Breton, the commissioner for the EU Internal Market, wrote: “Endless streams of short and fast-paced videos could be seen as fun, but also expose our children to risks of addiction, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, low attention spans… With our first DSA non-compliance case against TikTok still ongoing, the company has launched TikTok Lite which financially rewards extra screen time. We suspect TikTok ‘Lite’ could be as toxic and addictive as cigarettes ‘light’. Unless TikTok provides compelling proof of its safety, which it has failed to do until now, we stand ready to trigger DSA interim measures including the suspension of TikTok Lite feature which we suspect could generate addiction. We will spare no effort to protect our children.”
This report was updated with comment from TikTok; and to confirm the platform’s approach to age verification is being investigated by the EU.
The mixed reality operating system that powers Meta Quest headsets can officially be used by third-party device makers, the company announced on Monday. Now called “Meta Horizon OS,” the open system allows developers to access technologies like eye, face, hand, and body tracking, high-resolution passthrough, and more.
Three major tech players—Asus, Lenovo and Microsoft’s Xbox—are the first companies to confirm they’ll be developing new devices that run the software. Most notably, Microsoft is teaming up with Meta to build a “limited-edition Meta Quest, inspired by Xbox,” according to the announcement. Asus and Lenovo, on the other hand, are building headsets designed for specific use cases. Asus is developing a headset dedicated to gaming whereas Lenovo wants its device to be for “productivity, learning, and entertainment.”
The company says all future headsets can connect via the same Meta Quest app on iOS and Android. Plus, the Meta Quest Store, which the company renamed the Meta Horizon Store, is open to third-party developers, allowing them to use Meta’s frameworks and tools to create new mixed-reality experiences.
Meta Horizon OS is a strategic move for the company and comes at a time when the VR/AR headset wars between Meta, Apple and Sony continue to heat up.
On Thursday, Apple announced that it has opened its iPhone repair process to include used components. Starting this fall, customers and independent repair shops will be able to fix the handset using compatible components.
Components that don’t require configuration (such as volume buttons) were already capable of being harvested from used devices. Today’s news adds all components — including the battery, display and camera — which Apple requires to be configured for full functionality. Face ID will not be available when the feature first rolls out, but it is coming down the road.
At launch, the feature will be available solely for the iPhone 15 line on both the supply and receiving ends of the repair. That caveat is due, in part, to limited interoperability between the models. In many cases, parts from older phones simply won’t fit. The broader limitation that prohibited the use of components from used models comes down to a process commonly known as “parts paring.”
Apple has defended the process, stating that using genuine components is an important aspect of maintaining user security and privacy. Historically, the company hasn’t used the term “parts pairing” to refer to its configuration process, but it acknowledges that phrase has been widely adopted externally. It’s also aware that the term is loaded in many circles.
“‘Parts pairing’ is used a lot outside and has this negative connotation,” Apple senior vice president of hardware engineering, John Ternus, tells TechCrunch. “I think it’s led people to believe that we somehow block third-party parts from working, which we don’t. The way we look at it is, we need to know what part is in the device, for a few reasons. One, we need to authenticate that it’s a real Apple biometric device and that it hasn’t been spoofed or something like that. … Calibration is the other one.”
Right-to-repair advocates have accused Apple of hiding behind parts pairing as an excuse to stifle user-repairability. In January, iFixit called the process the “biggest threat to repair.” The post paints a scenario wherein an iPhone user attempts to harvest a battery from a friend’s old device, only to be greeted with a pop-up notification stating, “Important Battery Message. Unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery.”
It’s a real scenario and surely one that’s proven confusing for more than a few people. After all, a battery that was taken directly from another iPhone is clearly the real deal.
Today’s news is a step toward resolving the issue on newer iPhones, allowing the system to effectively verify that the battery being used is, in fact, genuine.
“Parts pairing, regardless of what you call it, is not evil,” says Ternus. “We’re basically saying, if we know what module’s in there, we can make sure that when you put our module in a new phone, you’re gonna get the best quality you can. Why’s that a bad thing?”
The practice took on added national notoriety when it was specifically targeted by Oregon’s recently passed right-to-repair bill. Apple, which has penned an open letter in support of a similar California bill, heavily criticized the bill’s parts pairing clause.
“Apple supports a consumer’s right to repair, and we’ve been vocal in our support for both state and federal legislation,” a spokesperson for the company noted in March. “We support the latest repair laws in California and New York because they increase consumer access to repair while keeping in place critical consumer protections. However, we’re concerned a small portion of the language in Oregon Senate Bill 1596 could seriously impact the critical and industry-leading privacy, safety and security protections that iPhone users around the world rely on every day.”
While aspects of today’s news will be viewed as a step in the right direction among some repair advocates, it seems unlikely that it will make the iPhone wholly compliant with the Oregon bill. Apple declined to offer further speculation on the matter.
Biometrics — including fingerprint and facial scans — continue to be a sticking point for the company.
“You think about Touch ID and Face ID and the criticality of their security because of how much of our information is on our phones,” says Ternus. “Our entire life is on our phones. We have no way of validating the performance of any third-party biometrics. That’s an area where we don’t enable the use of third-party modules for the key security functions. But in all other aspects, we do.”
It doesn’t seem coincidental that today’s news is being announced within weeks of the Oregon bill’s passage — particularly given that these changes are set to roll out in the fall. The move also appears to echo Apple’s decision to focus more on user-repairability with the iPhone 14, news that arrived amid a rising international call for right-to-repair laws.
Apple notes, however, that the processes behind this work were set in motion some time ago. Today’s announcement around device harvesting, for instance, has been in the works for two years.
For his part, Ternus suggests that his team has been focused on increasing user access to repairs independent of looming state and international legislation. “We want to make things more repairable, so we’re doing that work anyway,” he says. “To some extent, with my team, we block out the news of the world, because we know what we’re doing is right, and we focus on that.”
Overall, the executive preaches a kind of right tool for the right job philosophy to product design and self-repair.
“Repairability in isolation is not always the best answer,” Ternus says. “One of the things that I worry about is that people get very focused as if repairability is the goal. The reality is repairability is a means to an end. The goal is to build products that last, and if you focus too much on [making every part repairable], you end up creating some unintended consequences that are worse for the consumer and worse for the planet.”
Also announced this morning is an enhancement to Activation Lock, which is designed to deter thieves from harvesting stolen phones for parts. “If a device under repair detects that a supported part was obtained from another device with Activation Lock or Lost Mode enabled,” the company notes, “calibration capabilities for that part will be restricted.”
Ternus adds that, in addition to harvesting used iPhones for parts, Apple “fundamentally support[s] the right for people to use third-party parts as well.” Part of that, however, is enabling transparency.
“We have hundreds of millions of iPhones in use that are second- or third-hand devices,” he explains. “They’re a great way for people to get into the iPhone experience at a lower price point. We think it’s important for them to have the transparency of: was a repair done on this device? What part was used? That sort of thing.”
When iOS 15.2 arrived in November 2021, it introduced a new feature called “iPhone parts and service history.” If your phone is new and has never been repaired, you simply won’t see it. If one of those two qualifications does apply to your device, however, the company surfaces a list of switched parts and repairs in Settings.
Ternus cites a recent UL Solutions study as evidence that third-party battery modules, in particular, can present a hazard to users.
“We don’t block the use of third-party batteries,” he says. “But we think it’s important to be able to notify the customer that this is or isn’t an authentic Apple battery, and hopefully that will motivate some of these third parties to improve the quality.”
While the fall update will open harvesting up to a good number of components, Apple has no plans to sell refurbished parts for user repairs.
Ibotta began it’s path as a public company on Thursday by opening at $117 per share, a big increase from its IPO price of $88, itself an increase from its proposed range of $76 to $84 per share.
And this pop is despite boosting the size of its offering earlier in the week, with existing shareholders expanding their sale by just under one million shares.
Shares are not continuing to climb in early trading, but are holding steady above its IPO price, at around $100 at the time of writing.
The company left money on the table “for investors who are very bullish on it [expanding] its third-party platform beyond just Walmart,” which has become a key partner for Ibotta and represents much of its current revenue, said Nicholas Smith, a senior research analyst at pre-IPO research company Renaissance Capital. Given that its started trading far above its IPO price today, some critics may argue that it left too much money on the table, and could have raised more for itself.
Its successful debut marks the third major tech IPO in the United States this year, and is the third in a row to price well and immediately trade higher. It is also the first half of a pair of technology offerings that will list this month, with data management and security company Rubrik expected to list its own shares next week. The two companies follow Reddit and Astera Labs out of the private markets, after both the social media company and datacenter connectivity hardware play continue to trade above their IPO prices.
Investor eagerness for Ibotta indicates that “there is an increasing appetite for IPOs again” Smith said, “particularly in the tech space.”
Don’t pop the champagne yet for the tech IPO market coming roaring back, however. Ibotta pivoted to business sales over a direct-to-consumer model, which helped it reach profitability in recent periods. Classic tech IPOs tend to feature tech companies still in growth mode and deeply in the red.
Rubrik could be a better test of IPO appetite. Its products are in the data management and security worlds, and the company is deeply unprofitable and growing more slowly than Ibotta. That said, it does have a strong cloud revenue story to tell. If its debut goes well, we could see more yet-unprofitable unicorns try a shot at the public markets.
Smith agrees, calling the upcoming Rubrik IPO “an even bigger test” for tech debuts “given its weaker current financial picture.”
We’ll find out next week.
Apple is opening up web distribution for iOS apps targeting users in the European Union starting Tuesday. Developers who opt in — and who meet Apple’s criteria, including app notarization requirements — will be able to offer iPhone apps for direct download to EU users from their own websites.
It’s a massive change for a mobile ecosystem that otherwise bars so-called “sideloading.” Apple’s walled garden stance has enabled it to funnel essentially all iOS developer revenue through its own App Store in the past. But, in the EU, that moat is being dismantled as a result of new regulations that apply to the App Store and which the iPhone maker has been expected to comply with since early last month.
In March, Apple announced that a web distribution entitlement would soon be coming to its mobile platform as part of changes aimed at complying with the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The pan-EU regulation puts a set of obligations on in-scope tech giants that lawmakers hope will level the competitive playing field for platforms’ business users, as well as protecting consumers from Big Tech throwing its weight around.
Briefing journalists on the latest development to its EU app ecosystem Tuesday, ahead of the official announcement, an Apple representative said developers wanting to distribute iOS apps directly will be able to tap into the entitlement through beta 2 of iOS 17.5.
In order to do so developers will have to opt into Apple’s new EU business terms, which include a new “core technology fee” charged at €0.50 for each first annual install over 1 million in the past 12 months regardless of where apps are distributed. App makers wishing to avoid the fee currently have no choice but to remain on Apple’s old business terms, meaning they are unable to access any of the DMA entitlements.
In earlier DMA changes, App has opened up to allow marketplace apps in the EU where developers can run their own app stores on iOS, including marketplaces composed of only their own apps.
Additional DMA-driven reforms include more flexibility from Apple around in-app payments, as well as a ban on its usual anti-steering measures. This means that iOS developers opting into the new T&Cs can inform their users of cheaper offers available outside Apple’s own App Store.
Returning to the new option of web distribution for iOS apps, Apple’s criteria for developers wanting to distribute their software directly include that they be in good standing with its developer program; attest to handle things like IP disputes and government takedown requests; and commit to providing iOS users with customer service, as Apple will not offer that kind of support for iOS apps downloaded outside its App Store.
It also emphasizes that all apps distributed from the web must meet its notarizations requirements, which it says are intended to protect platform integrity.
An Apple rep described this as a baseline safety and security standard, which they said iOS users expect to help ensure their device is protected from external risks.
The company continues to argue that sideloading apps carries inherent security risks for mobile users, suggesting it’s trying to find a way to comply with the DMA while taking steps to limit risks the changes create for its users.
The first time an iOS user attempts to download an app from a developer’s website they will be required to authorize the developer to install apps directly on their device. Apple’s current design of the authorization flow involves multiple steps and requires users to verify that they wish to provide permission for developer via the iOS settings menu and by clicking “allow” on subsequent permission pop-ups (the other option, i.e. to deny permission, reads “ignore”).
After they have gone through this multi-step flow and approved a developer, any future direct downloads involve fewer steps, per Apple.
The design of the follow-on flow that Apple showed during the briefing includes a screen notifying users that “updates and purchases in this app will be managed by the developer,” combined with a suggestion they “verify the information below before installing,” which is displayed above a card showing some basic app info and screenshots, as well as a link to see “more” info.
Apple argues these steps and the information iOS surfaces to users during the authorization process for direct web downloads are reasonable security measures; the DMA permits gatekeepers to apply these steps in order to protect platform integrity.
However critics of Apple’s DMA approach have decried these sort of pop-ups as “scare screens,” arguing the flow it designs is intended to inject friction and dissuade iOS users from stepping outside Apple’s garden — such as by implying direct downloads are riskier than downloads through Apple’s own App Store.
Apple’s approach to a number of other elements of DMA compliance are under investigation by the European Commission, so at least some of these criticisms have spurred EU enforcers to take a closer look at its take on what the law demands.
Last month the Commission announced that it’s looking into Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the design of choice screens for alternatives to its Safari web browser, which is another regulated core platform service under the DMA. The EU also announced some “investigatory steps” in relation to Apple’s new iOS fee structure, but, for now, the new core tech fee stands.
Given Apple has only just started implementing web distribution for iOS apps, it remains to be seen whether the EU will step in for a closer look at this aspect of its DMA compliance, too.
It’s also unclear how much demand there will be among iOS developers for direct web distribution. Asked about this, Apple said it’s heard from some app makers they want to have the option but it also pointed out it’s a new capability, which is just starting to be made available, saying it’s unsure how many developers will actually want to take advantage of the option. The option sits alongside the existing (established) and still available option of App Store distribution.
In the EU, developers also now have a third route for reaching users: They can submit a marketplace app to Apple requesting to distribute their software through their own alternative store hosted on its platform.
Founded in 2017, Atoms Lanka Solutions is a provider of IT consulting and software development services. Throughout the company’s history, we have worked with over 160 customers from 5+ countries..
