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Facebook vows to manually review ad targeting after ‘Jew-Haters’ scandal
Facebook failed to foresee how turning user-written interests and employer information from profiles into ad targeting options could turn offensive. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has apologized for the situation, and announced that Facebook will now manually review all ad targeting options. Read More
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AR helmet startup Skully may have risen from the dead
It seems Skully, the AR helmet company that crashed and burned in July of 2016 after the former CEO Marcus Weller refused to sign a confidentiality deal with investors is trying to make a comeback. Read More
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Senator says Equifax should offer customers free credit security freezes
Equifax’s handling of the massive data breach that affected 143 million people has been ineffective, Senator Brian Schatz wrote today in a letter to Equifax. He says what Equifax has offered customers, a one-year complimentary subscription to credit monitoring, is “inadequate for several reasons.” Read More
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Amazon files for arbitration against Kindle Direct authors and publishers
Amazon has accused several book publishers, marketers and authors of using the Kindle Direct Publishing system to artificially inflate their sales numbers and has now filed for arbitration against them. Read More
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Twitter’s terms of service are making people mad — but they’re not new
Twitter is making some minor changes to its terms of service (ToS) for users outside of the U.S. this October and a lot of people are rather upset about them. What seems to be the trigger here is that these “new” terms are going into effect for the rest of the world on October 2nd and Twitter is likely notifying its users of this update now. The new ToS takes out a few things… Read More
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SoFi responds to sexual harassment and wage lawsuits
Last month a SoFi senior operations manager filed a lawsuit saying he was wrongfully terminated for reporting sexual harassment, as well as for outing managers who he claims improperly recorded loans. Five former SoFi employees filed a separate lawsuit alleging they weren’t given breaks or paid in accordance with California law. Now, SoFi CEO Mike Cagney is sharing more info about… Read More
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Pishevar calls Benchmark-Kalanick lawsuit ‘grandest business and moral battles of our generation’
Early Uber investor and former board member Shervin Pishevar can’t seem to stop weighing in on Benchmark’s lawsuit with former CEO Travis Kalanick. Read More
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DOJ is investigating Uber for possible foreign bribes
The global ridesharing company, which has come under added scrutiny for allegations of sexism and various other lawsuits in recent months, may be finding itself in more hot water. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Justice is evaluating whether managers breached the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which relates to bribing foreign officials. Read More
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Every board member of anonymous app Whisper has reportedly stepped down
Remember Whisper, the anonymous chat app? It’s been a while since we’ve heard much from the company, but it’s still around and has recently lost a bunch of high-profile board members. Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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Travis Kalanick says Benchmark’s claims are ‘fabricated allegations’
Travis Kalanick, former CEO of Uber, filed a document today arguing the case involving Benchmark Capital should move to arbitration. This filing reiterates Kalanick’s earlier argument that Benchmark’s claims are subject to mandatory arbitration and that the Delaware Chancery Court doesn’t have the jurisdiction to settle them. Read More
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Uber’s financials show company is still growing, despite the drama
Uber’s past six months have been tumultuous, with lawsuits and allegations of harassment. The company doesn’t even have a CEO right now, but newly released financials suggest that most users don’t care. First reported by Axios, Uber has confirmed to us that Uber’s $8.7 billion in gross bookings were up 17 percent in the second quarter. Global trips increased 150… Read More
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Wal-Mart takes a cue from Amazon and applies for its own drone-deploying blimp patent
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is taking on Amazon in what appears to be a copycat move — by applying for a drone-deploying blimp patent. You may recall about a year ago Amazon filed a patent for a flying warehouse that will send drones to your door. Now Walmart wants in on Amazon’s idea. Read More
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Uber investor Shervin Pishevar petitions Benchmark to step down from board and sell some of its stock
Shortly after a group of Uber shareholders asked Benchmark to relinquish its spot on Uber’s board of directors, Sherpa Capital’s Shervin Pishevar is petitioning Benchmark via Change.org to remove itself from Uber’s board. The petition also asks Benchmark to sell at least 75 percent of its stock so that the firm no longer has rights to appoint members to Uber’s board… Read More
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500 Startups shuts down its Canada fund
Following sexual harassment allegations that led to the resignation of 500 Startups co-founder Dave McClure, it’s now emerged that the troubled VC firm has abandoned its Canada fund. According to reports in The Globe and Mail and BetaKit, the saga made it difficult to move forward with the next phase of 500 Canada, where it had a profit-sharing relationship. The firm was in the process… Read More
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Every member of Hampton Creek’s board has stepped down except for the CEO
Hampton Creek is in the news again — and not for the reasons it would like to be. Hampton Creek’s entire board of directors have left, except for CEO Josh Tetrick. Read More
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Google responds to academic funding controversy — with a GIF
Last week, an advocacy group called Campaign for Accountability (CfA) released a list of academics and policy experts who had received funding from Google in the last few years. That created quite a stir, especially because many of the scholars on the list didn’t think they should have been included in this list in the first place. Read More
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SoundCloud sinks as leaks say layoffs buy little time
A tense scene unfolded yesterday as user-generated music streaming service SoundCloud held an all-hands meeting to explain to employees why it suddenly had to lay off 40 percent of its staff last week. Exiting team members wanted to know why they weren’t warned, while those who survived the cuts wanted assurance that the cost reductions would keep the company afloat for the long-run. Read More
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Vizio files $100M lawsuit against LeEco
Last summer LeEco announced it intended to purchase the U.S.-based TV maker Vizio for $2 billion. The deal fell through in March amid myriad problems surrounding LeEco, including a major cash crunch. Allegedly the deal included a $100 million buyer-termination fee and now Vizio has filed suit in a California court to collect payment. Read More
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The hunted becomes the hunter: How Cloudflare’s fight with a ‘patent troll’ could alter the game
Matthew Prince knew what was coming. The CEO of Cloudflare, an internet security company and content delivery network in San Francisco, was behind his desk when the emails began. College classmates-turned-defense attorneys were reaching out to say hello and to ask: did Prince perhaps need help to fight a lawsuit they’d seen filed against Cloudflare? Read More
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In new filing, Uber says it was unaware of Waymo data theft prior to lawsuit
In response to a series of questions posed by District Judge William Alsup, Uber claims that no one there was aware of any proprietary information taken from Waymo until that company had filed its lawsuit. Read More
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