California’s attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the e-commerce giant of anti-competitive pricing tactics. The suit filed Wednesday accuses Amazon of penalizing third-party sellers who list their products at lower prices on other platforms. According to the WSJ, it is the biggest legal challenge that Amazon has faced in the U.S. More: - According to the complaint, Amazon often removes buttons such as “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” from a product's listing page if it finds that item listed at a lower price on a competitor's site.
- Since those buttons drive sales, the move incentivizes third-party sellers to raise those prices on other marketplaces, the suit claims.
- California AG Rob Bonta said the alleged tactic violates the California Unfair Competition Law and the Cartwright Act, the state's primary antitrust law.
- In response, Amazon said it "takes pride" in its lower prices and broad selection and reserves the right "not to highlight offers to customers that are not priced competitively."
- The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages and a court order that would block Amazon from the practice. It is limited to California but could have broader impacts across the U.S.
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Adobe announced on Thursday that it agreed to acquire design software firm Figma for roughly $20B in cash and stock. It would be the largest takeover of a private software company to date, Bloomberg's Katie Roof tweeted. More: - Software designers use Figma's cloud-based collaboration tools to design and build web applications.
- Zoom, Airbnb, and Coinbase are among the companies that use its platform.
- Backed by Greylock Partners and other investors, Figma was last valued at $10B in June 2021.
- Figma's real-time collaboration design software competes directly with Adobe's XD program.
- Adobe announced the deal as part of its quarterly results released on Thursday. The company reported a Q3 net income of $1.14B on revenue of $4.43B, a 13% rise YoY.
- Adobe previously acquired Marketo Inc. for $4.75B in 2018, Workfront for $1.5B in 2020, and frame.io for $1.28B in 2021.
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Ethereum has completed its anticipated Merge event that switches the blockchain from a "proof of work" to a "proof of stake" system. The major software upgrade is expected to reduce Ethereum's energy consumption by nearly 99.95%, according to the non-profit Ethereum Foundation. More: - The upgrade, in the works since 2016, alters the network's transactions and the creation of ether tokens.
- Under the previous "proof of work" system, computers competed to solve complex math problems to add a new block to the chain, which was largely energy inefficient.
- According to reports, one Ethereum transaction used as much power as an average U.S. household in a single week.
- The new "Proof of stake" eliminates this competition and allows validators to use their ether to verify transactions and mint tokens.
- Ethereum’s developers say the upgrade makes the network more scalable and secure. With the technical part done, reports note that hacks, bugs, and price instability could be issues in the coming weeks.
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YouTube has reportedly been testing five ads instead of two before a video starts playing. The Google-owned platform confirmed that some users may be seeing an ad format called bumper ads, which are six seconds long each and unskippable. More: - A small number of YouTube Free users have now reported seeing the bumper ads.
- It's unclear if YouTube plans to roll out the new format more widely.
- The company noted it's accepting comments about its ad policy via its “Send Feedback” tool.
- Google's website describes the bumper ads further. It says the short video ad format helps brands reach more customers with a "short, memorable message" of six seconds or less, having a minimal impact on the user's viewing experience.
- Bumper ad views don't add to a video’s view count. They also "often work well when run along with related YouTube ads," the company said.
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Google has canceled half of the projects in its in-house incubator, Area 120. The canceled projects include a carbon accounting tool, an AR/VR analytics tool, and a map of electric-vehicle charging stations. More: - Area 120 was formed in 2016 to support employees' experimental technology projects within Google.
- Features that have come out of the division include Android smart replies and GameSnacks, an HTML5 gaming platform that's now a part of the Google Ads business unit.
- On Wednesday, TechCrunch reported that the 14 projects housed in the division have been cut down to seven. The R&D unit is shifting its focus to more AI-first projects, it said.
- Employees whose projects were canceled have until the end of January to find new roles within the company or lose their jobs.
Zoom-out: - The cuts come after CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to Google staff in July, saying that the company would be slowing its pace of hiring through 2022.
- Pichai told employees that they need to work with "greater urgency, sharper focus, and more hunger" than in previous years. He listed actions that employees may need to take, such as streamlining, pausing deployment, and redistributing resources to higher-priority areas.
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Snapchat has rolled out its new web version to all users worldwide. Snapchat for the Web initially launched in July and was only available to users of its paid subscription service. More: - The web version lets users send photos and do chat and video calls.
- While still fairly basic, Snap said it could add more core features to the interface if the demand is there.
- More Snapchat users have been using the platform's video calling feature in recent months. As of July, 100 million users make calls every month, according to the company.
- Also this week, Snapchat introduced new lock screen widgets for iPhone users. Those who download iOS 16, available as of this week, can add a widget to start chats from the lock screen.
- The company previously launched the $3.99-per-month subscription service, Snapchat Plus, that unlocks experimental and exclusive features, though it doesn't expect it to be a "material" revenue source.
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- Zoom was back online Thursday morning after an hourlong outage prevented thousands of users from joining meetings.
- Early indicators suggest that pre-orders are low for Apple's standard iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
- Netflix forecasts that its upcoming ad-supported tier will reach 40 million users by Q3 2023, the WSJ reported. The cheaper plan is expected to go live on Nov. 1.
- A Belgian artist created AI software that was able to identify social media influencers in publicly available camera feeds of public landmarks.
- Google and NASA partnered to create a virtual Solar System with 3D/AR models of several planets and spacecraft.
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 |  | Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
California’s attorney general on Wednesday filed an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the ecommerce giant of anti-competitive pricing tactics. The suit accuses Amazon of penalizing third-party sellers who list their products at lower prices on other platforms. According to the WSJ, it is the biggest legal challenge that Amazon has faced in the U.S. More: - According to the complaint, Amazon often removes buttons such as “Buy Now” and “Add to Cart” from a product's listing page if it finds that item listed at a lower price on a competitor's site.
- Since those buttons drive sales, the move incentivizes third-party sellers to raise those prices on other marketplaces, the suit claims.
- California AG Rob Bonta said the alleged tactic violates the California Unfair Competition Law and the Cartwright Act, the state's primary antitrust law.
- In response, Amazon said it "takes price" in its lower prices and broad selectoin and reserve the right "not to highlight offers to customers that are not priced competitively."
- The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages and a court order that would block Amazon from the practice. It is limited to California but could have broader impacts across the U.S.
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