Natasha Lomas
Senior Reporter
The Latest from Natasha Lomas
Juro draws $23M into its browser-based contract automation platform
London-based legaltech startup Juro has grabbed $23 million in Series B funding for its browser-based contract automation platform. In total the startup has raised $31.5M since being founded back in
Give users genuine control over ad targeting, MEPs urged
Over 30 civil society organizations, pro-privacy tech businesses and European startups are making a last ditch pitch to try to convince EU lawmakers to put stricter limits on surveillance advertising
In bad news for US cloud services, Austrian website’s use of Google Analytics found to breach GDPR
A decision by Austria’s data protection watchdog upholding a complaint against a website related to its use of Google Analytics does not bode well for use of US cloud services in Europe. The dec
Google offers not to put News Showcase into search results in Germany as antitrust probe rolls on
In the latest bit of regulatory woe for Big Tech in Europe, Google is trying to settle a German antitrust investigation into its news licensing product by offering not to expand the display of News Sh
TravelPerk adds $115M to equity and debt Series D, discloses unicorn valuation
SME-focused business travel booking platform TravelPerk has topped up the $160 million in equity and debt it raised last in a Series D last April with an additional $115 million — closing out th
Twig takes $35M to turn stuff you own into a way to pay
Twig, a London-based fintech targeting Gen Z and younger millennial consumers with an e-money account that gives them instant cash-outs on fashion and electronics they want to sell, has closed a $35 m
European parliament found to have broken EU rules on data transfers and cookie consents
The European Union’s chief data protection supervisor has sanctioned the European Parliament for a series of breaches of the bloc’s data protection rules. The decision sounds a loud warnin
Kodland, which teaches kids digital skills, grabs $9M to scale its online coding school
London-based Kodland, which started out back in 2018 offering in-person courses for children to learn digital skills like computer programming before switching focus to online learning from early 2020
Abbott tells CES it’s getting into consumer biowearables
U.S. medical device maker Abbott is moving into making general-purpose consumer biosensing wearables. The company has been making continuous glucose monitor (CGM) hardware for diabetes management for
Four weeks as an Ultrahuman ‘Cyborg’
For four weeks during 2021, this TechCrunch reporter took the plunge and tested a “metabolic fitness” service from Bangalore-based startup Ultrahuman. The tracker program, branded Cyborg,
France spanks Google $170M, Facebook $68M over cookie consent dark patterns
Chalk another one up for decentralized enforcement: France’s data protection watchdog has slapped headline-grabbing fines on Facebook and Google for failing to respect local (and pan-EU) cookie
Germany’s antitrust probe of Google products steps up a gear
In a decision as significant as it is unexpected, Germany’s antitrust regulator has concluded that Google’s business meets the threshold for special abuse control which was established und
This AI-powered art app lets you paint pictures with words
The reality-bending powers of AI have been kept increasingly busy over the past decade. We’ve had computer vision-powered 3D dioramas; trend-setting style-transfer; viral photorealistic selfie-t
Delivery Hero calls last orders on Foodpanda in Germany, Japan as it tightens focus on Q-commerce and logistics-as-a-service
German on-demand delivery giant Delivery Hero is pulling its food delivery service out of Germany again. At the same time it has announced it will exit the Japanese market, by divesting Foodpanda Japa
EU clears Microsoft-Nuance without conditions
The European Union’s competition regulator has given the all-clear to Microsoft’s $19.7 billion purchase of transcription tech firm Nuance, which was announced earlier this year. The EU sa
Facebook’s internal assessment of EU-US data transfers shows it has no legal leg to stand on, says noyb
In its latest (and last) pre-Christmas document reveal, European privacy advocacy group noyb has published details of an 86-page internal assessment by Facebook of its (continued) transfers of Europea
Adtech vendors still tracking EU users who deny consent via IAB’s TCF, study suggests
New research examining what happens after Internet users in Europe land on an ad-supported website and express their “privacy choices” — using a flagship ad industry consent manageme
France latest to slap Clearview AI with order to delete data
Controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI, which has amassed a database of some 10 billion images by scraping selfies off the Internet so it can sell an identity-matching service to law e
MEPs back limits on Big Tech’s ability to set self-serving defaults
The European Parliament has agreed its negotiating position on draft legislation to put limits on how Big Tech can operate with the aim of rebooting competition and fair dealing in digital markets. Th
Kalendar AI wants its sales bots to win your next customers
Kalendar AI, a San Francisco-based startup that’s been building on top of GPT-3‘s language model — developing a SaaS for automating lead generation and sales outreach to make it easi