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The UK CMA launches a probe into the planned $13.25B merger of ad giants Omnicom and Interpublic to assess potential competition reduction in the UK ad market (DhanushVignesh Babu / Reuters) reuters.com/sustainability… techmeme.com/250616/p8#a250… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Digital asset platform Tron plans to go public via a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment, after the US paused a probe into founder Justin Sun (Financial Times) ft.com/content/13a6ce… techmeme.com/250616/p9#a250… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

The Trump Organization teases the $499 "T1 Phone", a "sleek, gold" phone "designed and built" in the US, and Trump Mobile, based on AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile (Todd Spangler / Variety) variety.com/2025/biz/news/… techmeme.com/250616/p10#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

WhatsApp rolls out ads in its Updates tab, a first for the app, and will collect some data to target the ads, but says it has no plans to put ads in chats (New York Times) nytimes.com/2025/06/16/tec… techmeme.com/250616/p11#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

AI is just another productivity tool and the productivity gains will be limited; for lasting economic expansion, AI must catalyze new industries and initiatives (Carl Benedikt Frey / Financial Times) ft.com/content/55bc58… techmeme.com/250616/p12#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Europol, Germany, and more dismantle Archetyp Market, a darknet drug marketplace active since May 2020 with 612K users processing €250M+ in Monero transactions (Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer) bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/… techmeme.com/250616/p13#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Trump Media and Technology Group files an S-1 with the US SEC to launch a spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF, allocating 75% to bitcoin and 25% to ether (@oknightcrypto / CoinDesk) coindesk.com/business/2025/… techmeme.com/250616/p14#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Patreon plans to consolidate its Pro and Premium plans starting August 5, taking a 10% commission, rather than the current 8% for Pro and 12% for Premium users (Dominic Preston / The Verge) theverge.com/news/687570/pa… techmeme.com/250616/p15#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Juniper Square, which offers investment management and fund administration tools for real estate, PE, VC firms, raised $130M led by Ribbit at a $1.1B valuation (@katie_roof / Bloomberg) bloomberg.com/news/articles/… techmeme.com/250616/p16#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Threads plans to let users hide text or images that spoil a piece of entertainment, blurring the text or image that has been marked as a spoiler (Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter) hollywoodreporter.com/business/digit… techmeme.com/250616/p17#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

EchoStar's stock jumps 45%+ after a report said EchoStar's chairman met Trump, a day after meeting FCC's Carr; EchoStar faces FCC spectrum license uncertainty (Monica Alleven / Fierce Network) fierce-network.com/wireless/heres… techmeme.com/250616/p18#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

PostHog, which offers dev tools to analyze, test, observe, and deploy new features, raised a $70M Series D led by Stripe at a $920M valuation (Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News) news.crunchbase.com/ai/startup-pos… techmeme.com/250616/p19#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Sources: Meta's talks with Scale AI started in mid-April, with Zuckerberg floating a $5B investment in early May, which Alexandr Wang later countered with $20B (Cory Weinberg / The Information) theinformation.com/articles/meta-… techmeme.com/250616/p20#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Sources: OpenAI and Microsoft talks have become so fraught that OpenAI execs discussed accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior before federal regulators (Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal) wsj.com/tech/ai/openai… techmeme.com/250616/p21#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

The Meta AI app now shows a warning prompt before users share content to the public feed, after reports of users accidentally sharing chats with personal info (Katie Notopoulos / Business Insider) businessinsider.com/meta-ai-public… techmeme.com/250616/p22#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

The US Defense Department awards a one-year $200M contract to OpenAI to develop AI tools for addressing challenges in "warfighting and enterprise domains" (Jordan Novet / CNBC) cnbc.com/2025/06/16/ope… techmeme.com/250616/p23#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

The US Senate's draft tax bill would raise the CHIPS Act's tax credit for semiconductor factories from 25% to 30% until the tax break expires at the end of 2026 (@alicia_diaz23 / Bloomberg) bloomberg.com/news/articles/… techmeme.com/250616/p24#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

2025 Digital News Report: social media overtakes TV as the top news source in the US, with 54% accessing news via social media and video apps, vs. 50% for TV (Nieman Lab) niemanlab.org/2025/06/for-th… techmeme.com/250616/p25#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Memo: Intel's manufacturing VP said Intel plans to cut 15%-20% of staff, starting in July, "to meet our affordability challenges and current financial position" (Mike Rogoway / Oregonian) oregonlive.com/silicon-forest… techmeme.com/250616/p26#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

Sources: OpenAI wants Microsoft to take a ~33% stake in exchange for giving up future profit rights, and seeks to revise its exclusive cloud deal with Microsoft (The Information) theinformation.com/articles/opena… techmeme.com/250616/p27#a25… x.com/Techmeme/statu…