Daily Crunch: Google commits $1B to pay publishers

Google is paying a lot of money for its news licensing program, Microsoft announces an affordable laptop and Facebook says it won’t accept ads casting doubts on the election. This is your Daily Crunch for October 1, 2020.

The big story: Google commits $1B to pay publishers

Specifically, CEO Sundar Pichai said today that the company will be paying $1 billion to news publishers to license their content for a new format called the Google News Showcase — basically, panels highlighting stories from partner publishers in Google News.

Google outlined the broad strokes of this plan over the summer, but now it’s actually launching, and it has signed deals with 200 publications in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, the U.K. and Australia.

This announcement also comes as Google and Facebook are both facing battles in a number of countries as regulators and publishers pressure them for payments.

The tech giants

Microsoft adds the $549 Laptop Go to its growing Surface lineup — At $549, the Laptop Go is $50 more than the Surface Go tablet, but it’s still an extremely affordable take on the category.

Facebook won’t accept ads that ‘delegitimize’ US election results — Facebook said this includes ads “calling a method of voting inherently fraudulent or corrupt, or using isolated incidents of voter fraud to delegitimize the result of an election.”

Google now has three mid-range Pixel phones — Brian Heater unpacks the company’s smartphone strategy.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Working for social justice isn’t a ‘distraction’ for mission-focused companies — Passion Capital’s Eileen Burbidge weighs in on Coinbase’s controversial stance on politics.

Cazoo, the UK used car sales platform, raises another $311M, now valued at over $2.5B — The funding comes only six months after the company raised $116 million.

With $18M in new funding, Braintrust says it’s creating a fairer model for freelancers — The startup is using a cryptocurrency token that it calls Btrust to reward users who build the network.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Latin America’s digital transformation is making up for lost time — After more than a decade of gradual progress made through fits and starts, tech in Latin America finally hit its stride.

News apps in the US and China use algorithms to drive engagement, discovery — We examine various players in the field and ask how their black boxes affect people’s content consumption.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Section 230 will be on the chopping block at the next big tech hearing — It looks like we’re in for another big tech CEO hearing.

What if the kernel is corrupt? — The latest episode of Equity discusses moderation issues at Clubhouse.

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