Big EU Fine for Meta; Meta’s Twitter Competitor; AT&T and Others Oppose Starlink T-Mobile Deal; Amazon Palm Scanner to Verify Age, Too

Meta has just been whacked with a record $1.3 billion fine over the company’s transferring of Facebook data of European Union customers to the US. The EU regulators believe such data transfers expose EU users to privacy violations….a complaint with its roots going clear back to 2013. Transferring data is crucial to Meta’s ad-targeting system. Last year, they told the EU they might be forced to shut down Facebook and Instagram in the EU if they weren’t able to send data back to the US. Meta has said they will appeal immediately. One EU official said that the $1.3 billion fine was akin to a parking ticket to Meta, which makes many billions serving ads to EU users. 

In what may be better news for Meta, but not so great for Twitter, Meta may be ready to launch a Twitter competitor as soon as June. According to engadget.com, it will be under the Instagram banner, and you will be able to use your Instagram credentials to log in. It is reportedly a decentralized network like Mastodon or Jack Dorsey’s still-in-beta Blue Sky. Apparently you will be able to use the Meta app to interact with other services like Mastodon without switching between apps. Text updates will allow for up to 500 characters, and you will be able to share pics and videos, too. No name has been leaked yet, the service is only known by codenames like Barcelona and P92. 

T-Mobile and Starlink have proposed a partnership for satellite to phone service, and now AT&T and some rural wireless carriers have filed with the FCC to oppose the deal. Engadget.com says they have raised concerns that the companies’ service, in its current proposed state, could interfere with existing wireless services. AT&T has spectrum adjacent to that which the proposed T-Mobile—Starlink deal would use. It should be noted that AT&T has it own partnership plans for satellite service in conjunction with AST Space Mobile. They have already successfully conducted the first 2 way satellite audio calls on AT&T’s network in Texas to a Rakuten number in Japan using a Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone just last month. AT&T claims in their FCC filing that Applicants’ (meaning T-Moble and Starlink’s) technical showings are woefully insufficient regarding the risk of harmful interference posed by their planned SCS deployments. The battle for space phones is on!

Amazon One, Amazon’s palm scanning tech, is now adding age verification. Techcrunch.com reports that customers at sports events will be able to buy adult beverages by hovering their palm over the Amazon One reader. Coors Field will be the first to use the tech (presumably to sell you a Coors, not a Bud!) The tech will hit other venues in the next few months. Because palm prints are unique, when you scan yours, the biometric tech confirms your handprint with a credit card you inserted at sign up for the service plus your government ID like a driver’s license that you have uploaded in advance. Amazon says the palm print images are encrypted and stored in a secure area of the AWS cloud…which has restricted employee access. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re Technified for now.