Policy
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The four public policy questions every startup should ask
As a necessary function of a product launch, startups are myopic — they’re frenzied, they’re broke and they’re not remotely cognizant of the serious public policy hurdles to which they’re racing. That’s the problem. Newly proposed rules for foreign entrepreneurs will help some, but not all, found U.S. startups
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, an office under the Department of Homeland Security, put forward a proposal today that would allow the U.S. Government to offer parole (temporary permission to be in the country) to foreign entrepreneurs starting their businesses in the United States. The proposal specifies that a founder can qualify if they started a company in the U.S. in… Read More
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Facebook will bypass web adblockers, but offer ad targeting opt-outs
Facebook is making the HTML of its web ads indistinguishable from organic content so it can slip by adblockers. But in exchange for taking away this option for controlling ads from people, its allowing them to opt-out of ad targeting categories and Custom Audience customer lists uploaded by advertisers. Today all desktop users will see an announcement atop the News Feed explaining that while… Read More
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To Catch a Pikachu: NY Governor moves to ban sex offenders from Pokémon GO
When you think about it, the ability for someone to put a “lure” on a spot of their choosing and attract young Pokémon fans to their location is slightly disturbing — which is why New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is trying to ban paroled sex offenders from playing Pokémon GO and other online games. Read More
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Can the Airbnb regulatory nightmare be solved with more tech?
Sharing economy startups like Airbnb and Uber have gone nuclear to defend their business model, suing city governments or shuttering their services entirely when they don’t get their way. Airbnb recently sued the City of San Francisco over legislation that would require Airbnb to boot hosts off its platform if they don’t register with the city. Uber and Lyft haven’t had… Read More
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Austin police are now impounding drivers in the peer-to-peer ridesharing group
Austin’s transportation saga just keeps getting more interesting. Last week, we wrote about a 30,000 member Facebook group that had formed in Austin to help facilitate ride requests in the absence of Uber and Lyft. Riders posted requests, drivers responded, and people got where they needed to go. One problem – the drivers and riders were not using an official service to… Read More
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Copyright questions remain after Google’s fair use victory
If you didn’t already know the jury’s decision in Oracle’s long-running lawsuit against Google, you wouldn’t have been able to guess it from looking at either company’s legal team yesterday. Moments after the verdict was read, both sets of high-powered intellectual property lawyers huddled up and spoke softly, without any outward signs that Oracle had just lost… Read More
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Jury finds Google’s implementation of Java in Android was fair use
Software developers can breathe a massive sigh of relief — a jury found today that Google’s implementation of 37 Java APIs in Android qualified as fair use. However, Oracle attorneys have already indicated that they will appeal the decision.
“Today’s verdict that Android makes fair use of Java APIs represents a win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming… Read More
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The Europas — It’s time for a different type of tech conference
Let’s face it. Some tech conferences have lost their way. While TechCrunch Disrupt remains a firmly curated, media-driven, event, with hundreds of journalists attending, a couple of other conferences have really gone for scale. A minimum of 15,000 people, thousands of companies, echoing halls — and a lot of investors (and journalists) turning their badges around so they don’t… Read More
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Alphabet CEO Larry Page defends Android’s use of Java APIs in court
Alphabet CEO and Google co-founder Larry Page defended his company’s development of the Android platform today during an ongoing legal battle with Oracle. Oracle sued Google in 2010, claiming that Android developers copied sections of proprietary code from Java. Google has maintained that the code in question was open source and free for its engineers to use, and that the implementation… Read More
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