Natasha Lomas
Senior Reporter
The Latest from Natasha Lomas
Tech giants’ slowing progress on hate speech removals underscores need for law, says EC
Tech giants have gotten worse at removing illegal hate speech from their platforms under a voluntary arrangement in the European Union, according to the Commission’s latest assessment. The sixth
Cord gets $17.5M to get more devs plugged into its API for real-time collaboration
Cord, a startup that offers a single API to add Slack-like collaboration features to any app, has bagged $17.5 million in Series A funding. The round — which is pegged to fund product developmen
Google rivals call on EU to set rules for search engine preference menus
Four search engine rivals to Google have called on European Union lawmakers to address the tech giant’s continued dominance of the market by setting rules for search engine preference menus, arg
UK publishes safety-focused rules for video-sharing platforms like TikTok
Video-sharing platforms that offer a service in the U.K. have to comply with new regulations intended to protect users and under-18s from harmful content such as hate speech and videos/ads likely to i
Cabify bolts on grocery deliveries in Spain with Lola Market tie-up
Spanish ride-hailing unicorn Cabify is getting into grocery deliveries as it looks to add another string to its multimodal mobility and urban utility bow. It announced the addition of a “Super&#
European Parliament backs ban on remote biometric surveillance
The European Parliament has voted to back a total ban on biometric mass surveillance. AI-powered remote surveillance technologies such as facial recognition have huge implications for fundamental righ
Uber faces legal action over ‘racially discriminatory’ facial recognition ID checks
Ride-hailing giant Uber is facing a legal challenge over its use of real-time facial recognition technology in a driver and courier identity check system that it uses in the U.K. The App Drivers &
Habitual is using digital support plus food replacement to help reverse type 2 diabetes
London-based Habitual, a health tech startup which offers a weight loss program aimed at people with type 2 diabetes (or prediabetes) that combines “evidence-based” food replacement with d
Leak shows Facebook’s business model needs regulating, says MEP
The European Parliament’s lead and shadow rapporteur for a major reboot of the bloc’s digital rulebook have called for an investigation following the Facebook whistleblower leaks. One of t
Made of Air, a maker of ‘carbon negative’ thermoplastics, locks in $5.8M
Berlin-based climate tech startup Made of Air has closed a €5 million (~$5.8 million) seed funding round, led by Norwegian sustainability-focused family fund, TD Veen. Also participating are Patrick
Clubhouse, Vimeo, DoubleVerify and others set to sign up to beefed-up disinformation code in the EU
Audio social network Clubhouse, video sharing platform Vimeo and anti-ad fraud startup DoubleVerify are among a clutch of tech companies and organzations preparing to sign up to a beefed-up version of
SquadPal is a social app to help remote working teams gel
The future of office work, post-COVID-19, is driving plenty of startup activity. Not just around core business needs like comms (Zoom, Slack et al.) — but entrepreneurs are also competing to com
UK class action-style suit filed over DeepMind NHS health data scandal
A U.K. law firm is bringing a class-action style claim over a patient health data scandal that dates back to 2015 and involves the Google-owned AI company DeepMind, after it was quietly passed medical
Fairphone adds a 5G smartphone, touting software support until at least 2025
Dutch social enterprise Fairphone has announced its first 5G smartphone, the Fairphone 4. The “greentech” mobile maker differentiates from almost the entire smartphone industry through a p
Seeking to respin Instagram’s toxicity for teens, Facebook publishes annotated slide decks
Facebook has quietly published internal research that was earlier obtained by The Wall Street Journal — and reported as evidence the tech giant knew about Instagram’s toxic impact on teena
‘No-code’ tool maker, Heyflow, nabs $6M to fix your customer conversions
Heyflow, a Hamburg, Germany-based startup touting “no-code” tools for easily building interactive “clickflows” to boost customer conversions, has bagged a $6 million seed. The
EU considers single rules for regulating vacation rental platforms
European Union lawmakers are consulting on how to regulate the short-term rental market across the bloc — asking whether a single set of pan-EU rules or something more locally flavored is needed
UK marketing-led group takes antitrust complaint against Google’s Privacy Sandbox to the EU
A coalition of digital marketing firms and others has taken its lobbying against Google’s plan to phase out tracking cookies — by replacing them with alternative technologies which the tec
Australia latest to eye laws to curb Google’s adtech dominance
Australia’s competition watchdog is the latest to push for legal powers to curb Google’s dominance in the adtech sector. It has made the call as it published its final report on an inquiry examini
UK clears Facebook’s purchase of CRM maker, Kustomer
The U.K.’s competition watchdog has cleared Facebook’s acquisition of Kustomer, a maker of CRM tools. The purchase was announced last November — with a price tag we reported as $1 bi