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A world without Google

Good morning! This Tuesday, Australia is ready for life without Google search, Facebook and Apple are fighting through popups and everybody still loves tech companies.
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The Australian government wants Google and Facebook to be better partners to the news industry. Google and Facebook are … not fans of this plan.
Australia's new law would require that Google and Facebook go to arbitration if they can't agree on deals with local publishers, and that they notify publishers in advance of any material algorithm changes.
Let's say this isn't just Big Tech playing hardball, and that Facebook and Google are actually willing to leave the country over this deal. What changes in a country like … wait, what's that? How did Bing get in here?
Meanwhile, Australia's cracking down on information quality. It's in the midst of a huge vaccine rollout, part of which includes a huge trust-building campaign that seems to double as an anti-Facebook crusade.
Google and Facebook are right that everyone's watching what happens here. And it doesn't look like Australia's backing down anytime soon.
It's not always just the question you're asking. It's how you ask it. And when it comes to user privacy and data collection, Apple and Facebook both want it their way.
Apple's about to add a pop-up to Facebook's app (and others) telling users that "'Facebook' would like permission to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies."
Facebook's trying to preempt the pop-up with its own pop-up, explaining that "to provide a better ads experience, we need permission" to know what you're up to. "This won't give us access to new types of information," it says, which is not not ominous.
This is just one small part of the increasingly ruthless fight between the two companies, which both assume bad faith and evil business practices on the part of the other.
Ultimately, I suspect Facebook is going to need to tell users a more compelling story than "we'll show you such good ads, you'll love them, just give us all your data!" It's demonstrably true that people would rather have targeted ads than non-targeted ones, which is the way Facebook likes to frame the question. Apple wants to ask it differently: "Would you rather have your data, or really great ads?" That's not often going to go Facebook's way.
What techlash? According to Fortune's annual "World's Most Admired Companies" list, there's no more beloved industry.
Why sales teams at Box and Segment rely on Slack to build stronger customer relationships and seal deals faster.
Read how sales organizations at Box and Segment are harnessing the power of channel-based messaging to keep communication strong, seal deals and streamline the sales cycle when everyone is remote.
People don't need to be "protected" from making WallStreetBets-based decisions, Reddit's Steve Huffman said:
Backstage Capital is turning into a new kind of VC firm, Arlan Hamilton said:
Skip email and open up your Instagram DMs instead, Initialized Capital's Garry Tan said:
David Schmaier is the new president and chief product officer at Salesforce. He's been at the company since joining as part of the Vlocity acquisition.
David Lee is the new head of Samsung Next. He's getting out of the VC game for now, but said he'll still be working with partners all over the world.
On Protocol: Alondra Nelson is America's first deputy director for science and society, and will spearhead efforts to study what tech and science are doing to modern life.
Sriram Krishnan is a new general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, The Information reported. Presumably he'll also keep hosting the Good Time Show on Clubhouse.
Oliver Heckmann just started as Coda's head of engineering, after a long stint at Google.
Jade Raymond is leaving Google, as the company shuts down its internal game development projects. (Stadia in general seems headed toward "feature of Google Cloud" rather than "consumer product.")
IBM has reportedly cut over 90% of its blockchain team after it missed revenue targets by 90%. IBM denied the claims.
The first all-civilian space flight is happening this October, Elon Musk said yesterday, all in the name of charity. Want a seat? You can enter Shift4's entrepreneurial contest, which sounds complicated. Or you can just win a raffle, and all that'll cost is a donation to St. Jude's. Jared Isaacman, who is spearheading the project, said he's hoping to raise $200 million, so maybe buy a couple of tickets.
Why sales teams at Box and Segment rely on Slack to build stronger customer relationships and seal deals faster.
Read how sales organizations at Box and Segment are harnessing the power of channel-based messaging to keep communication strong, seal deals and streamline the sales cycle when everyone is remote.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day; see you tomorrow.
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