Meta fined $276 million over Facebook data leak involving more than 533 million users

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Ireland’s Data Protection Commission hit Meta with a €265 million fine (about $276 million USD) after an April 2021 data leak exposed the information of more than 533 million users. The DPC started the investigation shortly after news of the leak broke and involved an examination into whether…

Orion sends back new images of the moon’s craters, some of which could be home to ice and water

The moon’s surface, captured by Orion’s optical navigation camera. NASA While Americans were busy basting their Thanksgiving turkeys or making a list of the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, NASA’s Orion spacecraft was orbiting the moon and taking some images. NASA released the beautifully detailed images on the sixth day of Orion’s 25.5-day…

Meta hit with ~$275M GDPR penalty for Facebook data-scraping breach

Facebook’s parent, Meta, has been hit with another hefty penalty for breaching European data protection law. The €265 million (~$275M) fine was announced today by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), the tech giant’s lead regulator for the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The DPC confirmed that the decision, which was adopted on…

BackingMinds raises new €50 million fund to fund normally overlooked entrepreneurs

Denmark-based venture fund BackingMinds, founded in 2016, likes to think it takes a different approach to venture in Europe. Its new €50 million fund will aim to take a road less travelled by most VCs, looking “for the blind spots” traditional venture capital can often miss because of typical VC herd behaviour (such as investing…

SWVL reduces its headcount by 50% six months after axing 400+ staff

Cairo-born and Dubai-based mass transit and shared mobility services provider SWVL has carried out its second round of layoffs affecting 50% of its remaining headcount, according to a statement shared by the company.  The news is coming six months after SWVL laid off 32% of its workforce in a “portfolio optimization program” effort geared towards…

Yahoo gets 25% stake in Taboola as part of long-term advertising deal

Yahoo is taking a nearly 25% stake in advertising network Taboola. In exchange for this move, Taboola is becoming Yahoo’s native advertising partner through a 30-year commercial agreement. If you’re not familiar with Taboola, you may have seen its content recommendation widgets on popular news websites, such as USA Today, Insider and The Weather Channel….