Twitter sues the DHS, YouTube cuts off ads for younger channels and Samsung soars to new heights thanks to the S8. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for April 7, 2017. 1. Twitter sues the Department of Homeland Security Twitter has filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security to protect the identity of the owner of an anonymous account that tweets from @ALT_USCIS. The account purports to be run by staff of the U.S. citizenship and immigration services department, and this suit gives credence to its authenticity. It's heartening to see Twitter fight back against this request, and the ACLU is likely to back the people behind the account. Twitter definitely deserves some credit for squaring off against DHS in order to protect its users. 2. YouTube cuts off ad monetization for smaller channels YouTube has a new policy that prevents channels with fewer than 10,000 cumulative views across all its videos from collecting ad revenue. The measure has been in the works since November, says YouTube, but it seems very likely it's a response to recent advertising screw ups that have seen big brand ads placed against racist content. 3. Samsung projects big gains from the Galaxy S8 Samsung says it's going to see profits jump nearly 50 percent year over year for its first quarter in 2017. That's great news for the company coming off of its Galaxy Note 7 fiasco, and a sign that the whole nasty affair likely won't have long-term brand impact. 4. Trump likely to nominate Lyft exec to transportation department Lyft basically rode strong anti-Trump sentiment to a new $500 million funding round and a popularity boost among users, but now it looks like one of its execs might accept a position within Trump's Transportation department. That would probably be bad for overall sentiment, to say the least, but Lyft might place more value on being close to transportation policy makers. 5. 23andMe gets new FDA clearance Genetic testing company 23andMe is now allowed to tell its users if it they're at risk for up 10 diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. That sounds like good news for the company's model, but it's bound to be controversial, since the reason it's been barred from providing this kind of info to begin with was due to the risk that customers would self-medicate as a result of provided info. 6. Otonomo is the key ingredient helping carmakers monetize data Israeli startup Otonomo just raised $25 million to help it grow its burgeoning business, which is to connect carmakers with companies that want to use the increasing pool of data they collect to make money. It's a booming business, and likely to boom bigger in the future. 7. The full transcript of Apple's discussion of the Mac's future Apple was especially candid about the future of the Mac earlier this week, and now we have the full transcript for your enjoyment. This might be the most on-record Apple exec content in one place at one time ever – outside of keynotes. Here's something else on record: Sign up for our new weekly startups newsletter, curated by Anthony Ha. Just follow the link below and check the "TC Startups" checkbox. |