Year: 2020

La Famiglia, the Berlin-based “female-led” VC firm that invests in European B2B tech startups at seed-stage, has raised a second fund totalling €50 million, up from its debut fund of €35 million in 2017.

Investors in La Famiglia have ties to numerous industry giants in Europe and beyond. They include the Mittal, Pictet, Oetker, Hymer and Swarovski families, industry leaders Voith and Franke, as well as the owning families behind conglomerates such as Hapag Lloyd, Solvay, Adidas, and Valentino. In addition, the likes of Niklas Zennström (Skype, Atomico), Zoopla’s Alex Chesterman and Personio’s Hanno Renner, are also LPs.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its investor list, La Famiglia — which has backed 37 startups to date, such as Forto, Arculus, and Graphy — positions itself based on its industry network, promising to foster cooperation between “young digital disruptors and leading companies,” including many parts of the old economy needing to outsource R&D/innovation.

“Our ambition is to capture the fundamental shift in value creation across the largest sectors of our European economy, which are either being disrupted or enabled by digital technologies,” La Famiglia founding partner Dr. Jeannette zu Fürstenberg tells me. “We believe that opportunities in fields such as manufacturing or logistics will be shaped by a deep process understanding of these industries, which is the key differentiator in creating successful outcomes and a strength that European entrepreneurs can leverage”.

“Picking up a lot of signals from various expert sources in our network informs the opportunity landscape we see and allows us to invest with a strong sense of market timing,” adds La Famiglia partner Judith Dada. “Next to verticals like insurance or industrial manufacturing, we also invest into companies tackling more horizontal opportunities, such as sustainability in its vast importance across industries, as well as new ways that our work is being transformed, for workers of all types. We look for opportunities across a spectrum of technological trends, but are particularly focused on the application potential of machine learning and AI”.

On La Famiglia’s ability to partner with big industry, zu Fürstenberg cites her own industrial family business background, growing up with many other “next-generation” family business owners. “Rather than providing a mere network, which is often highly transactional, this exposure has allowed La Famiglia to form strong relationships that are built on trust,” she argues. “No matter what the age or the industry, when you put entrepreneurs face to face they often speak the same language, and this allows for fast time to impact for both sides”.

Meanwhile, several investments have already been made out of La Famiglia’s second fund. They include Berlin-based Spread.ai, building a product intelligence platform, Munich-based Luminovo, building the operating system for the electronics industry, and London-based ChaosIQ, building a resilience infrastructure platform.

Pinterest’s former chief operating officer has filed a lawsuit accusing the company of gender discrimination. Françoise Brougher, who says she was abruptly fired from the company in April, is suing the company to hold it “accountable for discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), and the Labor Code,” according to a Tuesday filing in San Francisco Superior Court. (The full text of the filing is embedded below.)

Pinterest announced in June that it currently has about 400 million monthly active users, most of whom are women. But its top executives are all men. “Ironically, even though Pinterest markets itself to women as a source of lifestyle inspiration, the company leadership team is male dominated, and gender-biased attitudes are prevalent,” the lawsuit says.

Before joining Pinterest in March 2018, Brougher held executive positions at Square, Google and Charles Schawb. Despite her experience, Brougher claims in her lawsuit that she was hired with a less favorable equity compensation package than her male peers. During her time at the company, Brougher also says she was left out of key decision-making by other executives; subjected to a hostile work environment; and ultimately fired by chief executive officer Ben Silbermann when she spoke up against her treatment.

In a Medium post published today, Brougher writes, “I have always been a private person, but I am opening up about my experience because if someone of my privilege and seniority is fired for speaking out about these issues, the situation is likely far worse for people earlier in their careers.”

Brougher’s case against Pinterest comes two months after two Black former employees, Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks, accused the company of unequal pay, racial discrimination and retaliation.

At the time Brougher was hired, the lawsuit says she was told Pinterest’s board directed executives to receive backloaded equity grants. Her equity grant stipulated that only 10% of shares vested in the first year; followed by 20% the second year; 30% the third year; and 40% the fourth year. Brougher assumed this vesting schedule was standard for Pinterest executives.

When the company filed to go public last year, however, Brougher realized while looking at its S-1 filing that her male peers’ equity grants were not backloaded. Brougher’s compensation was adjusted after she raised concerns with Silbermann, who directed her to Pinterest’s human resources department.

Brougher says she was not invited on Pinterest’s IPO roadshow, despite being its COO and knowing many of the company’s investors.

After Pinterest’s initial public offering in April 2019, Brougher says she was no longer invited to board meetings, even though members of were team occasionally were, sometimes without her knowledge. “As COO of Pinterest, Ms. Brougher no longer had meaningful engagement with the company’s board,” the lawsuit says.

Brougher’s suit also claims that she began receiving more critical feedback, and cites a study by tech executive Kiernan Snyder called “The Abrasiveness Trap,” which found women are assessed more negatively than men in 248 reviews collected from 28 companies of different sizes. Snyder found that 87.9% of reviews for women contained critical feedback, compared to 58.9% of reviews for men. Their personalities were the focus of criticism in 75.5% of critical reviews for women, compared to just 2.4% of the critical reviews received by men.

The lawsuit claims Silbermann criticized Brougher for “not being collaborative and told her that she did not have consistently healthy cross-functional relationships.” When Brougher asked him for more details, she claims “he told her to keep quiet, saying she should ‘be mindful’ of how she acted in a group setting.”

Pinterest’s chief financial officer Todd Morgenfeld also allegedly became “increasingly disrespectful” to Brougher beginning in January 2020, undermining her authority by ignoring her and talking directly to her team members.

In one meeting, Brougher claims Morgenfeld sarcastically asked “What is your job anyway?” Silbermann would also wait to make key strategy decisions after meetings Brougher attended, meeting with one or two male colleagues after she had left.

In February, the lawsuit says Brougher received a peer review written by Morgenfeld, even though she had not been asked to review him. Despite Brougher’s work on Pinterest’s IPO, advertiser base and monetization strategy in Europe, the lawsuit says the “Morgenfeld’s only comment on her 2019 achievements was: “Seems to be a champion for diversity issues.”

During a video call with Morgenfeld on February 21, 2020, Brougher says she tried to address his feedback, but that he became angry during the call, raised his voice, called her a liar, and questioned the value she brought to Pinterest before hanging up on her.

After the call, Brougher says she texted Silbermann and told him it had not gone well. On February 24, she met with Pinterest’s Chief Human Resources Officer Jo Dennis and said she wanted to find a way to work with Morgenfeld, but was uncomfortable meeting alone with him. Instead of mediating between Brougher and Morgenfeld, the lawsuit alleges Dennis treated the matter as a possible legal issue, escalating it to Pinterest’s in-house counsel.

On the same day, Brougher also met with Silbermann. The lawsuit claims that Silbermann compared the situation between Morgenfeld and Brougher to “an old couple fighting over who would make coffee.”

Then on April 2, Silbermann told Brougher that she was being fired and told her to transfer her responsibilities to Morgenfeld over the next month. He also asked her to tell her team that she had made the decision to leave, which she refused to do. Brougher claims her termination cost her “tens of millions of dollars in lost earnings and equity compensation.”

Brougher is being represented by law firm Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe, which also represented Ellen Pao in her gender discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins.

TechCrunch has reached out to Pinterest for comment. In a statement to The New York Times, a Pinterest representative said the company is conducting an independent review of its culture, policies, and practices.

BROUGHER_VS_PINTEREST.pdf by TechCrunch on Scribd

Rivian has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Tesla, arguing that two of the three claims in the case fails to state sufficient allegations of trade secret theft and poaching talent and instead was an attempt to malign its reputation and hurt its own recruiting efforts.

One remaining claim of breach of contract against four former Tesla employees was not included in this filing asking for “demurrer” or a dismissal because they do not related directly to Rivian. It’s still possible that lawyers representing those former employees will make a similar argument.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if the company responds.

In July, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Rivian and four former employers, on claims of poaching talent and stealing trade secrets. Specifically, Tesla claimed that Rivian instructed a recently departing Tesla employee about the types of confidential information it needed.

Rivian said in its August 10 filing with the California Superior Court in Santa Clara, that it has “rigorous policies and procedures to make sure it does not obtain confidential information from other companies when on-boarding employees.” Rivian said none of the alleged trade secrets in Tesla’s complaint have been located at Rivian or on any of its systems.

Rivian’s main argument is that Tesla failed to state facts sufficient to constitute cause of action. That legalese essentially means that the claims Tesla made aren’t sufficient to justify a right to sue. Rivian argues that Tesla is using speculation, not facts for the basis of its lawsuit.

“In particular, the Court should not credit as true speculation of the kind scattered throughout Tesla’s complaint,” Rivian said in the filing.

Rivian didn’t just dispute Tesla’s complaint, it pushed back harder with its own claims of impropriety.

Lawyers representing Rivian argued that Tesla didn’t file the case to defend or protect legitimate intellectual property rights, but instead used in “improper and malicious attempt to slow” the company’s momentum and attempt to damage its brand. The filing also claimed that Tesla used the lawsuit to scare its own employees from leaving the company.

Unfortunately, maligning Rivian was not Tesla’s only ulterior motive. Rather, it crafted
its complaint to achieve second improper purpose — namely to send threatening message to its own employees: don’t dare leave Tesla. Understanding that the strong public policy favoring
employee mobility in California restricts the use of non-compete contracts, Tesla’s complaint
seeks to punish four of its former employees for leaving Tesla and joining the Rivian team.

The response also questioned the timing of the lawsuit, which was filed soon after Rivian announced it had raised $2.5 billion in a round led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc.

Joe Biden’s decision to name California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate in the quest to unseat President Trump means that the next White House could be occupied not only by a Black woman — a historic milestone by any account — but also by someone who built a career in the tech industry’s front yard.

Born in Oakland, Harris served as San Francisco district attorney and later as the attorney general for California before being elected to the state’s Senate in 2016. And while the newly-named vice presidential nominee is likely to bring a deeper understanding of the tech industry to the race, her positions on how a Democratic administration should approach tech during an unprecedented moment of scrutiny isn’t exactly crystal clear.

Harris attracted considerable support from Silicon Valley executives in her bid for the Democratic nomination, outpacing other candidates in donations from employees from large tech companies early on. Notably, Harris was elected as California attorney general in 2010 and served two terms, overseeing the tech industry through a large portion of its most explosive growth — a measure that likely proves more meaningful in assessing her stance toward regulating the tech industry than the things she said along the campaign trail.

Playing it safe

As the primary developed and then-rival Elizabeth Warren carved out a posture critical of big tech, Harris seldom waded into thorny issues around regulating the tech industry. During an October debate, Harris avoided a question asking about concerns over second order effects if big tech companies were broken up, instead redirecting to the safer political territory of Trump’s Twitter account. Dodging meatier points about tech accountability, Harris called on Twitter to suspend the president’s account for violating its rules, calling the issue “a matter of safety and corporate accountability.”

Earlier this year, in response to a straightforward question asking if companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon should be broken up, Harris again dodged, though signaled that she is concerned in how those companies handle user data.

“I believe that tech companies have got to be regulated in a way that we can ensure the American consumer can be certain that their privacy is not being compromised,” Harris said. Harris also expressed her concerns about user privacy in a 2018 Twitter thread.

“Millions of Americans have no idea how much data Facebook is collecting, from tracking their location and IP address, to following their activities on other websites,” she wrote.

“In the real world, this would be like someone watching what you do, where you go, for how long, and with whom you’re with every day. For most, it would feel like an invasion of privacy.”

A focus on Facebook

In other critiques of tech, Harris has mostly concentrated on Facebook, denouncing its role in spreading Russian disinformation during the 2016 presidential race and expressing worries over how the company handles the data it collects.

When given the chance to press Mark Zuckerberg in person, Harris zeroed in on the company’s handling of the Cambridge Analytica data misuse to its users. More recently, Harris co-authored a letter to Facebook along with Colorado Senator Michael Bennett after the audit’s largely unflattering results were published, pressing the company on election concerns.

“Although the company has shown a recent willingness to rein in disinformation with respect to COVID-19, it has not shown equal resolve to confront voter suppression and learn the lessons of the 2016 election,” the senators wrote. “We share the auditors’ concern that Facebook has failed to use the tools and resources at its disposal to more vigorously combat voter suppression and protect civil rights.”

In another letter to the company, Harris criticized Facebook’s fact-checking policies for climate-related misinformation in light of a New York Times report.

In spite of the harsh talk, Harris seems to be on fairly friendly terms with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who congratulated her on the nomination Tuesday. Back in 2013, Harris apparently contributed to the marketing effort around Sandberg’s now-ubiquitous book Lean In, sharing her own story. Harris also spoke at a cyberbullying event hosted at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters in 2015 and the two were photographed on stage together.

Antitrust on the back burner?

While we have a handful of public statements from Harris about her views on tech, there’s plenty more that we don’t know. The way she positioned herself in relation to other candidates during the primary might not wholly reflect the kind of priorities she would bring to the vice presidency, and we’ll likely be learning more about those in the coming days.

Right now there are many, many crises on the table for the next administration. If regulating big tech looked like a huge campaign issue back in the pre-pandemic political landscape of 2020, conversations around police brutality and the devastating American failure to contain the coronavirus are now at the fore. Whether issues around antitrust regulation and reining in tech’s power will make it off the back burner remains to be seen, and there are plenty of national five-alarm fires to be put out in the meantime.

While her potential position as the nation’s next vice president doesn’t mean that Harris would be tasked with shaping tech policy or spearheading antitrust efforts, her deep connections to tech’s geographic hub could prove consequential in a Biden presidency and its priorities.

In spite of some question marks around her policy approaches, Harris is a known quantity for the tech industry — one who understands Silicon Valley and who, per her track record, isn’t keen to take on the industry’s biggest companies in spite of some recent tough talk. Whatever tech policies emerge out of a Biden/Harris campaign, the fresh vice presidential nominee is connected to tech in a more meaningful way than any other contender for the spot.

A state court has dismissed a high-profile case showing unsportsmanlike conduct by Google, which was caught red-handed using lyrics obviously scraped from Genius. Unfortunately for the latter, the complaints amount to a copyright violation — which wasn’t what the plaintiffs alleged, sinking the case.

The lawsuit, filed in December, accused Google of violating Genius’s terms of use and unjustly enriching itself by scraping lyrics on the site to be displayed on searches for songs. So, for instance, someone searching for “Your Love is Killing Me lyrics” would be shown the lyrics immediately instead of being sent to a site like Genius that hosted them.

That’s fair play, except when the lyrics are taken directly from those sites (directly or via an accomplice) without permission or attribution — and Genius proved that Google was doing this by cleverly hiding “RED HANDED” inside lyrics, using Morse code formed from curly and straight apostrophes. Devious!

Caught thus, Google said it would mend its ways, and soon was caught again, doing the same thing using the same method. It’s certainly enough to make you want to see the big G take some licks, and Genius filed a lawsuit hoping to achieve just that.

The problem is this: Genius isn’t the copyright holder for these lyrics, it just licenses them itself. Its allegations against Google, Judge Margo Brodie of the Eastern District of New York determined, amount to copyright violations, in nature if not in name, and copyright is outside Brodie’s jurisdiction.

Plaintiff’s allegations that Defendants “scraped” and used their lyrics for profit amount to allegations that Defendants made unauthorized reproductions of Plaintiff’s lyric transcriptions and profited off of those unauthorized reproductions, which is behavior that falls under federal copyright law.

As to allegations of unfair business conduct, Brodie says those too are copyright disputes:

Plaintiff has not alleged that Defendants breached any fiduciary duty or confidential relationship, or that Defendants misappropriated Plaintiff’s trade secrets. Instead, Plaintiff’s claims are precisely the type of misappropriation claims that courts have consistently held are preempted by the Copyright Act.

Because all the causes for complaint are preempted by federal law, Brodie really has no choice but to kick the case out:

Given that the Court finds that all of Plaintiff’s state law claims are preempted by the Copyright Act, and Plaintiff has not asserted any federal law claims, the Court dismisses the Complaint for failure to state a claim.

It’s a bit disappointing, of course, to see a company like Google engage in shenanigans and get away with it (though let us not forget that Genius has engaged in some shenanigans of its own). But the legal system is all about crossing your t’s and dotting your i’s. If someone steals your wallet, you don’t accuse them of embezzlement, even though they’re kind of the same thing.

In this case Genius’s legal team needed to bring a copyright complaint, but possibly were unable to due to not being the copyright owners themselves. (Copyright law is notoriously obtuse, especially in questions of digital copies and licensing.)

Genius could file a new lawsuit or just cut their losses, having given Google a very public black eye; the scraping practice even got some play during the recent tech antitrust hearings in Congress. Certainly Google is on notice — but make no mistake, they’re popping champagne in Mountain View tonight.

Google is using accelerometers in an interesting new way, Twitter allows everyone to limit tweet replies and Mozilla announces major layoffs. This is your Daily Crunch for August 11, 2020.

The big story: Android phones become earthquake detectors

Google said that smartphone accelerometers are sensitive enough to detect P-waves, which are the first waves to arrive during an earthquake. So if your Android phone thinks it has detected an earthquake, it will communicate with a central server to confirm.

In California, Google is also partnering with the United States Geological Survey and California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to provide earthquake alerts. For everyone else, you’ll only see this earthquake data if you search for “earthquake” or a similar term.

This is part of a broader set of Android-related announcements today, including updates to Android Auto and Android’s emergency location service, new accessibility features and better sleep through the Android Clock app.

The tech giants

Twitter now lets everyone limit replies to their tweets — A small globe icon will start to appear at the bottom of your tweets, and if you tap it, you can limit replies just to those who follow you, or just to those who you tag in the tweet itself.

Dell’s latest Chromebook blends enterprise security with premium specs — Once relegated to consumer or education use, Chromebooks are gaining traction in enterprise environments.

Tencent and Universal Music to take Chinese artists global under joint label — Tencent Music Entertainment, which spun off from Tencent, commands the lion’s share of China’s music streaming industry.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Google, Nokia, Qualcomm are investors in $230M Series A2 for Finnish phone maker, HMD Global — Since late 2016, the startup has exclusively licensed Nokia’s brand for mobile devices, going on to ship some 240 million devices to date.

Atomwise’s machine learning-based drug discovery service raises $123 million — Atomwise has already signed contracts with corporate partners that include Eli Lilly & Co., Bayer, Hansoh Pharmaceuticals and Bridge Biotherapeutics.

Scribd acquires presentation-sharing service SlideShare from LinkedIn — According to LinkedIn, Scribd will take over operation of the SlideShare business on September 24.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

How Moovit went from opportunity to a $900M exit in 8 years — Private investor (and former Moovit president) Omar Téllez shares the inside story.

No pen required: The digital future of real estate closings — One potential silver lining of the pandemic, at least for the real estate world, may be a forced reckoning with the mortgage closing process.

Emergence’s Jason Green still sees plenty of opportunities for enterprise SaaS startups — One consistent thread runs through Emergence’s portfolio: They focus on the cloud and enterprise, a thesis that has paid off big time.

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

Everything else

Mozilla lays off 250 — This move comes after the organization already laid off about 70 employees earlier this year.

EU-US Privacy Shield is dead. Long live Privacy Shield — The EU’s executive body and the US Department of Commerce have begun talks toward fashioning a new “Privacy Shield.”

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

The last few months have provided a steady trickle of information about the next Xbox console — or the Xbox Series X, as it’s known.

We know what it looks like. We know a lot about what’s inside. We know about over a dozen titles currently being built for it.

One thing we didn’t know was when it’d actually hit the shelves. Microsoft had said it’d be ready by the holidays, but held off on getting much more specific than that. Today they’re tightening up that launch window a bit: it’ll ship sometime in November, says the company.

Microsoft doesn’t say exactly when in November, so they’ve still got some wiggle room on the exact launch date. But it’s better than the big ol’ three-month window we knew about previously!

This news comes almost simultaneously with word that 343 Industries would be delaying the launch of Halo Infinite until 2021 “to deliver a Halo game experience that meets [343’s] vision”.

Today after the close of regular trading Tesla, a well-known American electric vehicle company, announced that it intends to split its shares 5 for 1. The split announcement comes after a sharp rally in the value of Tesla equity in recent quarters.

The company’s shares quickly rallied on the news, picking up 8% in after-hours trading.

Tesla, ever a controversial company, traded for as little as $211 in the last year. After today’s news the company is now worth $1,485 per share. Worth comfortably more than $250 billion, Tesla is amongst the world’s most valuable companies, let alone among the most valuable automakers.

Using our arithmetic, Tesla shares would be worth around $297 after the split.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Tomorrow’s a big day for early-stage startup founders preparing to exhibit in Digital Startup Alley at Disrupt 2020. We’re kicking off the first of three exclusive, interactive webinars to help exhibitors make the most of their Startup Alley experience.

Tune in tomorrow, August 12 at 1pm PT/ 4pm ET for The Dos and Don’ts of Working with the Press. Presenting your company to the media is both a skill and an art form. It takes thought and practice — and media training can help you craft a compelling story. Hundreds of journalists from around the world will be on the lookout for compelling stories at Disrupt 2020, and this workshop can help you catch their eye.

Positive media exposure is essential for early-stage startups. It can drop a spotlight on your business, help attract potential customers and jumpstart your funding. Or, as Luke Heron, CEO of TestCard and veteran Startup Alley exhibitor puts it:

“Coverage is the life blood of a startup. Cash at the beginning of the start-up journey is difficult to come by, and an article from a credible organization can help push things in the right direction.”

During tomorrow’s media training, TechCrunch writers and editors Greg Kumparak, Anthony Ha and Ingrid Lunden — experts at interviewing startup founders — will discuss best practices when it comes to talking with the press. You’ll learn what journalists look for and how to avoid pitfalls that could tank an interview.

If you’re still on the fence about exhibiting in Startup Alley, consider this. Disrupt 2020 spans five days and it’s the biggest, longest Disrupt ever. You’ll be able to network with thousands of attendees from around the world. And if you purchase your Disrupt Digital Startup Alley Package today, you can attend tomorrow’s media training.

You’ll also be able to attend two more webinars exclusively for Startup Alley exhibitors later this month. Check ‘em out and mark your calendar now!

• August 19 — COVID-19’s Impact on the Startup World with panelists Nicola Corzine, executive director of the Nasdaq Entrepreneurship Center, and Cameron Stanfill, a VC analyst at PitchBook.
• August 26 — Fundraising and Hiring Best Practices with panelists Sarah Kunst of Cleo Capital and Brett Berson of First Round Capital.

Got your Digital Startup Alley Package? Then tune in tomorrow for The Dos and Don’ts of Working with the Press and get ready to make your best possible impression with the press at Disrupt 2020.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Several companies offering phone-spying apps — known as “stalkerware” — are still advertising in Google search results, despite the search giant’s ban that took effect today, TechCrunch has found.

These controversial apps are often pitched to help parents snoop on their child’s calls, messages, apps and other private data under the guise of helping to protect against online predators.

But some repurpose these apps to spy on their spouses — often without their permission.

It’s a problem that the wider tech industry has worked to tackle. Security firms and antivirus makers are working to combat the rise of stalkerware, and federal authorities have taken action when app makers have violated the law.

One of the biggest actions to date came last month when Google announced an updated ads policy, effectively banning companies from advertising phone-snooping apps “with the express purpose of tracking or monitoring another person or their activities without their authorization.”

Google gave these companies until August 11 to remove these ads.

But TechCrunch found seven companies known to provide stalkerware — including FlexiSpy, mSpy, WebWatcher and KidsGuard — were still advertising in Google search results after the ban took effect.

Google did not say explicitly say if the stalkerware apps violated its policy, but told TechCrunch that it removed ads for WebWatcher. Despite the deadline, Google said that enforcement is not always immediate.

“We recently updated our policies to prohibit ads promoting spyware for partner surveillance while still allowing ads for technology that helps parents monitor their underage children,” said a Google spokesperson. “To prevent deceitful actors who try to disguise the product’s intent and evade our enforcement, we look at several signals like the ad text, creative and landing page, among others, for policy compliance. When we find that an ad or advertiser is violating our policies, we take immediate action.”

The policy is evidently far from perfect. Google faced immediate criticism for carving out exceptions to its new policy for “products or services designed for parents to track or monitor their underage children.”

Malwarebytes, one of several antivirus makers that pledged to help fight stalkerware, called the policy “incomplete,” in large part because the “the line between stalkerware-type applications and parental monitoring applications can be blurred.”

In this case, several of the stalkerware apps explicitly state how their apps could be used to spy on spouses.

For instance, mSpy’s website said the app can be used to spy on “your children, wife, or colleagues.” KidsGuard, which had a massive security lapse last year that exposed thousands of surveilled users, explicitly says on its homepage that its app can “catch a cheating spouse.” Two other app makers, Spyic and PhoneSpector, still have dozens of blog posts on their website explicitly referencing spying on spouses.

Last year the Electronic Frontier Foundation founded the Coalition Against Stalkerware, a group of academics, companies and nonprofits to help detect, combat and raise awareness of stalkerware.

---

Send tips securely over Signal and WhatsApp to +1 646-755-8849 or send an encrypted email to: zack.whittaker@protonmail.com