Business & Tech Questionable Study Shows How Much Ad Revenue Google News Has Siphoned From The News Industry News organizations nationwide have been complaining how Big Tech was thriving on the backs of journalists. Now a new report finds that Google made almost as much ad revenue last year on news searches as the entire news industry combined made on its own content.
Business & Tech Apple Kills Off iTunes, Adds iOS 13 Dark Mode Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Jose today, and the big announcements have begun rolling in — even though no major product announcements are expected at this one, except maybe a new Mac Pro.
Business & Tech Google Cloud Outage Shuts Down Everything From Smart Locks To Snapchat A significant outage with Google Cloud Services Sunday had widespread impacts that included right here on SFist — there were some scary moments there — but the most noticeable impacts for users were probably on Snapchat, YouTube, and Nest.
Business & Tech Salesforce Steps Into Gun Debate, Drops Customers Who Sell Automatic Weapons Salesforce made a change to the acceptable-use policy for its e-commerce software this week, adding a range of firearms and accessories to the list of products it forbids customers from selling.
Business & Tech Low Uber Rating? Company To Start Kicking 'Below Average' Riders Off The App Have you made a driver pull over one too many times so you could boot? Or worse, actually puked in the backseat of an Uber? You may just find yourself removed from the privilege of using Uber in the near future.
Business & Tech Judge Orders Uber To Turn Over Illegal Parking, Safety Hazard Data Police estimate that rideshare drivers commit 65% of San Francisco traffic violations, and the city attorney just won a round in the fight to prove it.
Business & Tech Don't Want To Chit-Chat With Your Uber Driver? New 'Quiet Mode' Is For You Uber has just rolled out a new feature for its black-car service: Quiet Mode. Without having to say so or be passive-aggressively terse, this new option will let your driver know you'd like to ride in silence, thanks.
Business & Tech Airbnb House Fire in Sonoma Tests Company’s Insurance Response A Sonoma couple learned the hard way that Airbnb's $1 million “Host Guarantee” is not exactly a guarantee, or at least not a quick one.
Business & Tech Facebook and Twitter Sign On With 'Christchurch Call' To Quash Extremist Content; White House Refuses The White House is signaling to white nationalists that it wants to protect their free speech rights by refusing to sign on with multiple Western governments to a non-binding pledge to stem the tide of extremist content.
Business & Tech Rideshare Vehicles Are Hotbeds For Germs, Moreso Than Taxis, Says Study Those dangling bottles of hand-sanitizer might be more than just a courtesy! A small-scale study comparing swabs taken from rideshare vehicles with those taken in taxis and rental cars found that the rideshare vehicles had the highest overall presence of bacteria and other germs.
Business & Tech Uber IPO Sputters, Stock Already Trading Below Initial Price Uber's big, much ballyhoo'd IPO did not get off to the most glorious start Friday afternoon, as an already conservative $45 initial share price appears too rich for investors' blood. Even Lyft had a bit of a first-day bounce on its IPO day!
Business & Tech Amazon Go a No-Go As Supes Vote To Ban Cashless Stores The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to ban all retail outlets in the city that don't accept cash as payment. The move to quell a growing trend of cashless stores and restaurants is meant to ensure access to all stores by low-income residents.
Business & Tech Kamala Harris Wants To Make Twitter and Facebook Accountable For Hate Speech Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris said over the weekend that she wants to hold social media companies responsible for allowing radicalization and hate speech on their platforms.
Business & Tech Facebook In Talks With Dozens Of Financial Firms About Launching Its Own Cryptocurrency As has been rumored on the tech blogs for months, Facebook is reportedly working to create its own cryptocurrency, and now we know the name of the covert project: Project Libra.
Business & Tech Uber Drivers Plan Strike Ahead Of IPO Uber drivers are planning to strike in seven cities on May 8, which may be right around the time the company has its big IPO day on Wall Street. The drivers are demanding better pay, benefits, and transparency around their wages.
Business & Tech Facebook Could Be Fined Up To $5 Billion By The FTC For Its Mishandling Of Data The fine, expected to be between $3 billion and $5 billion, is potentially more firm back-hand thwack that it is a wrist-slap, as such fines have mostly been in the past.
Business & Tech Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp Shut Off In Sri Lanka Following Terror Attacks After Sunday's deadly suicide bombings that killed nearly 300 people, the government of Sri Lanka shut off nationwide access to most social media sites and apps citing safety concerns and the spread of false news reports.
Business & Tech Facebook Algorithm Purposely Played Up Stories About Politics, Crime, and Tragedy While Mark Zuckerberg was talking out one side of his mouth in January 2018 about encouraging more "meaningful interactions" with friends and family, Facebook was simultaneously tweaking its News Feed algorithm to display more posts on the topics of "politics, crime, or tragedy."
Business & Tech Parents Of Slain Woman Launch #WhatsMyName Safety Campaign For Rideshare Users The parents of a South Carolina college student who was kidnapped and killed last month, allegedly by a man whose car she got into believing it was her Uber, are trying to raise awareness of the dangerous trend of people getting into strangers' cars thinking they're rideshares.
Business & Tech Lyft Reverts To Old-Timey Taxi Line In San Diego Airport Test Everything old is new again with rideshare company Lyft at San Diego Airport. The company is using San Diego for a pilot program in which Lyft users will be asked to go to a specially designated taxi line to meet up with a driver.
Business & Tech New Startup Hopes to Fill Your Living Room With Lonely Freelance Workers Yet another startup wants to cram more co-working into Mission District homes, Airbnb style, but city officials are already questioning whether this is even remotely legal.
Business & Tech Mark Zuckerberg Is Now Welcoming Congress To Regulate Facebook Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's latest masterstroke is to shift blame for all the election meddling and harmful content on the internet onto the government, rather than on Facebook.
Business & Tech Facebook Has Decided That 'White Nationalist' And 'White Separatist' Are Just Two Ways to Say 'Racist' On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it's changing its content moderation policy surrounding the categories of "white nationalism" and "white separatism," acknowledging that these are no different than white supremacy.
Business & Tech Apple Announces New Original Shows With Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carrell, J.J. Abrams and More For Apple TV+ At its much anticipated spring unveiling event today in Cupertino, Apple announced the launch of its big Netflix competitor, Apple TV+. The reboot of the Apple TV platform comes with a big slate of new original programming set to start airing this fall.
SF News Facebook Says It Removed 1.5 Million Copies Of The New Zealand Shooting Video The horrifying 17-minute Facebook Live video made by the accused New Zealand shooter proliferated on social media in the first 24 hours, and Facebook says it removed 1.5 million copies in that first day alone — 1.2 million of which were caught on upload.
