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 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. Airbnb agrees to acquire last-minute hotel-booking app HotelTonight
Once the deal is complete, the HotelTonight app and website will continue to operate independently, with co-founder and CEO Sam Shank reporting to Airbnb’s president of homes, Greg Greeley.
“Together, HotelTonight and Airbnb can give guests more choices and the world’s best boutique and independent hotels a genuine partner to connect them with those guests,” Shank said in a statement.
2. Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Google, Amazon and Facebook
The Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful is targeting what she characterizes as the consolidation of economic power in a few big tech companies. The key components of her plan include passing legislation that would designate certain companies as “platform utilities,” prohibiting them from owning participants on their platforms.
3. YC’s latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K ‘flying motorcycle’
Jetpack Aviation launched pre-orders this week for the moonshot of moonshots — the Speeder, a personal vertical take-off and landing vehicle with a svelte concept design that looks straight out of Star Wars or Halo.
HIALEAH, FL – AUGUST 08: Barbara Dale, a school nurse, prepares an immunization needle for a child August 8, 2007 in Hialeah, Florida. The free immunization is part of the Miami-Dade County Health Department’s program to help children heading back to school. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
4. Facebook will downrank anti-vax content on News Feed and hide it on Instagram
To achieve a reduction in the spread of anti-vax propaganda, Facebook will downrank groups and pages that spread this kind of content across both News Feed and its search function. Facebook will also reject ads promoting anti-vaccination misinformation.
5. Netflix star and tidying expert Marie Kondo is looking to raise $40M
Marie Kondo, the woman who stole millions of Netflix viewers’ hearts this year with her show, “Tidying Up,” is in talks to raise up to $40 million in venture capital funding to scale KonMari, the business behind her personal brand, books and TV series.
6. Cookie walls don’t comply with GDPR, says Dutch DPA
Cookie walls that demand a website visitor agrees to their internet browsing being tracked for ad-targeting as the price of entry to the site are not compliant with European data protection law, according to the Dutch data protection agency.
7. Salesforce at 20 offers lessons for startup success
The company that was once a tiny irritant going after giants in the CRM market of the ’90s has grown into a full-fledged SaaS powerhouse, and it celebrates its 20th anniversary today.
