More than seven years after the first Wall Street Journal story about problems with Theranos’ blood tests, its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, was sentenced to over a decade in prison for defrauding the company’s investors. She had been found guilty on four counts of fraud during a months-long trial where her lawyers argued that she was an inexperienced entrepreneur who hadn’t intended to mislead anyone.

Holmes’ story is, by now, well known. She founded Theranos as a college dropout, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from high-profile investors and courting former high-ranking government officials for her board. Since then, the rapid rise and downfall of Holmes and Theranos has taken on a life of its own, with major podcasts, books and a recent Hulu miniseries.

But Holmes herself has been almost completely silent. Her trial, where she testified in her own defense, and her sentencing are the only times she has spoken publicly about what went wrong at Theranos and how she feels all these years later. Watch the video above for the full story.

Google paid Activision Blizzard approximately $360 million to prevent the troubled publisher from competing directly against the Play Store. The deal was one among at least 24 agreements the search giant signed as part of its Project Hug initiative, according to court documents seen by Reuters.

The financial details of Project Hug – later known as the Apps and Games Velocity Program – are at the center of the ongoing antitrust lawsuit between Epic Games and Google. In 2021, the studio alleged Google had spent millions of dollars in incentives to keep big app developers on the Play Store. This week, a newly unredacted version of Epic’s complaint was made public, providing previously unknown details about the scope of the Apps and Games Velocity Program.

According to the court documents, Google also signed deals with Nintendo, Ubisoft and Riot Games. In the case of Riot, Google paid about $30 million to “stop” the League of Legends studio from pushing forward with its own “in-house ‘app store’ efforts,” Epic alleges. Riot Games did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges Google knew signing with Activision would prompt the publisher to “abandon its plans to launch a competing app store," a claim Activision disputes. “Google never asked us, pressured us, or made us agree not to compete with Google Play,” an Activision spokesperson told Reuters. “Epic’s allegations are nonsense.”

Google did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. The company previously said it was “looking forward to setting the record straight” on Epic’s “inaccurate” claims.

“The program on which Epic and Match base their claims simply provides incentives for developers to give benefits and early access to Google Play users when they release new or updated content; it does not prevent developers from creating competing app stores, as they allege,” Google told Engadget in October after Epic and Match filed a motion to bring additional charges against the company. “In fact, the program is proof that Google Play competes fairly with numerous rivals for developers, who have a number of choices for operating systems and app stores.”

Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO and founder of Theranos, has been sentenced to just over 11 years in prison for defrauding the investors of her blood testing startup. The sentence comes almost a year after Holmes was found guilty on four counts of fraud following a months-long trial.

Prosecutors had pushed for a 15-year sentence, while Holmes’ attorneys argued she should get no more than 18 months of house arrest. Her probation officer had recommended nine years, according to The New York Times.

Throughout the trial, Holmes’ lawyers tried to portray the Theranos founder as a young and inexperienced entrepreneur who hadn’t intended to deceive investors or the public. During her testimony, Holmes blamed many of Theranos’ problems on others at the company, including her former partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.

She also testified that Balwani was abusive during their romantic relationship, and that he had misled her about what was happening in Theranos’ lab. Balwani, who as COO also oversaw day-to-day operations of the company’s lab, was found guilty on 12 counts of fraud in a separate trial earlier this year. His sentencing is due in December.

Even at her sentencing, Holmes proved she still has influential allies to defend her. Several Silicon Valley investors, including early Theranos backer Tim Draper, wrote letters of support urging the judge for a lighter sentence. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker also wrote in her support, asking the judge for “a fair and just sentence.”

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Google has agreed to pay $391.5 million to settle charges brought forth by 40 attorneys general. They accused the company of misleading users into believing they had turned off location tracking in their settings, but Google continued to collect information about their movements. As part of the settlement, Google has agreed to "significantly improve" its location tracking disclosures and user controls starting next year.

“For years Google has prioritized profit over their users’ privacy,” Oregon attorney general Ellen Rosenblum, who led the case along with Nebraska AG Doug Peterson, said in a statement. “They have been crafty and deceptive. Consumers thought they had turned off their location tracking features on Google, but the company continued to secretly record their movements and use that information for advertisers.”

The AGs opened the investigation in 2018 following an Associated Press report suggesting that Google tracks location data even after users ask it not to. The report indicated that turning off the Location History setting didn't stop Google from knowing where a user was. Some apps, such as Maps and Search, still created a snapshot of their location on their Google account. Although it was possible to remove this data from one's Google account, doing so was "laborious," the AP noted.

The AGs determined that Google violated state consumer protection laws since at least 2014 by misleading consumers about its location tracking practices. They claimed that the company "confused its users about the extent to which they could limit Google’s location tracking by adjusting their account and device settings." They noted that this is the largest-ever consumer privacy settlement by US states (Meta, then known as Facebook, agreed to pay $5 billion to settle FTC charges over the Cambridge Analytica scandal). 

According to a press release from the Oregon AG's office, Google has agreed to:

• Show additional information to users whenever they turn a location-related account setting “on” or “off”;

• Make key information about location tracking unavoidable for users (i.e., not hidden); and

• Give users detailed information about the types of location data Google collects and how it’s used at an enhanced “Location Technologies” webpage.

Last month, Google agreed to pay Arizona $85 million to settle a 2020 lawsuit accusing it of tracking users for targeted ads even after they switched off location data settings. The company is facing other location tracking suits filed by AGs in Washington DC, Texas, Washington and Indiana.

The former executives in charge of MoviePass have been indicted in what the Justice Department calls "a scheme to defraud investors." Ex-MoviePass CEO J. Mitchell Lowe and Theodore Farnsworth, who used to be the chairman of the service's former parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY), have been charged with one count of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud. Federal authorities accuse them of making materially false and misleading claims regarding MoviePass' business in press releases, interviews and even SEC filings in a bid to artificially inflate HMNY's stocks and entice new investors. 

According to the newly unsealed court documents, Farnsworth and Lowe allegedly knew from the start that the business' $9.95 "unlimited" plan was a temporary gimmick to attract new subscribers and, hence, artificially inflate HMNY's stock prices. They also falsely claimed that the business model was tested to be sustainable and that it was possible to become profitable on subscription fees alone, the feds said. 

In addition, the executives allegedly claimed that HMNY had "big data" and AI technologies that could be used to generate revenue for the company by analyzing data collected from MoviePass subscribers. The indictment accuses them of making the claim even though they knew that HMNY did not have the technology or the capability to monetize subscriber data. 

Another allegation against the executives is that they'd made false representations that MoviePass was earning considerable money from multiple revenue streams. The business did not have a non-subscription revenue stream that would make it self-sufficient or offset its losses, according to authorities. Farnsworth and Lowe were also accused of implementing various tactics to prevent certain subscribers from being able to use their "unlimited" service. If you'll recall, MoviePass had to settle with the FTC in 2021 over allegations that it invalidated subscriber passwords on purpose to give it sufficient reason to freeze accounts of frequent users. 

In a statement made to The Verge, the spokesperson for Farnsworth said: "The indictment repeats the same allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Commission's recent complaint filed on September 27th against Mr. Farnsworth, concerning matters that were publicly disclosed nearly three years ago and widely reported by the news media. As with the SEC filing, Mr. Farnsworth is confident that the facts will demonstrate that he has acted in good faith, and his legal team intends to contest the allegations in the indictment until his vindication is achieved."

The SEC sued MoviePass for fraud back in September and also accused the executives of misleading investors about the viability of the company's $9.95-per-month business model. Despite its tumultuous past and all the accusations the former people in charge still have to face, MoviePass is back. Stacy Spikes, its original co-founder, purchased it back after HMNY filed for bankruptcy. The service relaunched in September 5th and now charges subscribers $10 a month for up to three movies, $20 a month for up to four and $30 for a maximum of five movies a month. 

As for Farnsworth and Lowe, they're now facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count of securities and wire fraud.

Twitter is facing a class action lawsuit over its ongoing mass layoffs today, which could likely cut its workforce in half. According to Bloomberg, employees filed a class action lawsuit against the company in San Francisco federal court, arguing that Twitter's actions run afoul of the US Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Under the labor law, companies with 100 or more employees are required to notify them of mass layoffs 60 days in advance.

The New York Times reported earlier that Twitter will begin layoffs on Friday and that around half of the company's staff members will lose their jobs. In an email seen by The Washington Post, Twitter said that the layoffs are "unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward." The company also told employees to stay at home today and to wait for an email. If they get one in their Twitter account, their job is safe. But if they receive the email in their personal account, that means they're being let go. Some people are reporting on the social network that they already got locked out of their work emails and had been removed from company Slack. 

The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue an order forcing Twitter to obey the WARN Act. They also want the court to prohibit the company from soliciting employees to sign away their right to litigate. Shannon Liss-Riordan, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said they filed the complaint "in an attempt to make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights."

Liss-Riordan was also the lawyer who handled the lawsuit against Tesla in June over layoffs that cut 10 percent of the automaker's workforce. Similar to this complaint, the plaintiffs back then argued that Tesla violated the WARN Act. Company chief Elon Musk, who took over Twitter a week ago, called the lawsuit "trivial" in a talk with Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait. The court had also sided with the company and ruled that employees should negotiate with Tesla in a closed-door arbitration instead.

A former Apple employee has pled guilty to defrauding the company out of over $17 million. Dhirendra Prasad, who spent most of his decade at Apple working as a buyer in the Global Service Supply Chain department, admitted to "taking kickbacks, inflating invoices, stealing parts and causing Apple to pay for items and services never received,” according to the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. Prasad started these schemes in 2011 and continued them until 2018. 

In one scam, Prasad shipped motherboards from Apple's inventory to CTrends, a company run by a co-conspirator, Don M. Baker (who previously admitted to taking part in the fraudulent schemes). Baker harvested components from the motherboards, then Prasad organized purchase orders for those parts. After Baker shipped the components back to Apple, CTrends filed invoices for which Prasad arranged payment. In the end, the pair got Apple to pay for its own components and they split the proceeds of the scam.

In addition to fleecing Apple, Prasad confessed to engaging in tax fraud. He directed payments from Robert Gary Hansen (another co-conspirator who has admitted to taking part in the schemes) straight to his creditors. In addition, Prasad arranged for a shell company to send sham invoices to CTrends with the aim of covering up illicit payments Baker made to him. This enabled Baker "to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars of unjustified tax deductions," the US Attorney's Office said. All told, prosecutors claim that the scams resulted in the IRS losing over $1.8 million.

Prasad will be sentenced in March. He pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. Prasad also pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, which has a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment. Moreover, Prasad agreed to forfeit around $5 million worth of assets he accrued as a result of his criminal actions, including real estate properties.

Use of live facial recognition (LFR) by UK police forces "fail[s] to meet the minimum ethical and legal standards," according to a study from the University of Cambridge. After analyzing LFR use by the Metropolitan (Met) and South Wales police, researchers concluded that the technology should be banned for use in "all public spaces."

LFR pairs faces captured by security cameras to database photos to find matches. China and other non-democratic regimes have used the technology to as part of their state surveillance tools.  

UK police have been testing its use in multiple situations to fight crime and terrorism. In two cases, LFR was used by MET and South Wales police to scan crowds and compare faces to those on a criminal “watch list." In another, officers used FRT smartphone apps to scan crowds and identify "wanted individuals in real time," according to the paper.

In those cases, the team found that police "kept from view" information about how they use the data and information about demographics. That has in turn made it difficult to determine whether the tools are promoting racial profiling, while raising questions about accountability. "Police forces are not necessarily answerable or held responsible for harms caused by facial recognition technology," said lead author Evani Radiya-Dixit.

The Met has claimed that the latest algorithms have improved LRF accuracy, with false alerts less than .08 percent, according to The Guardian. They boasted of a 70 percent success rate up to 2020, but an expert from the University of Essex hired by the police force found it was actually just 19 percent. "That the court of appeal explicitly stated in 2020 that South Wales police use of this technology was 'unlawful' makes it difficult to argue this technology should be used," he said.

However, the Met said its work was supported by law. "LFR is regulated by a number of sources of law. These sources of law combine to provide a multilayered legal structure to use, regulate and oversee the use of LFR by law enforcement bodies," it told The Guardian. UK's parliament has yet to weigh in, even though it's created legislation around internet privacy.

The Federal Trade Commission will call on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify in its upcoming case against the company. The FTC sued the social media giant in July in an attempt to block it from buying Within Unlimited, the creator of the popular VR workout app Supernatural.

Reuters reports that the agency listed 18 witnesses, including Zuckerberg and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth, in a court document filed with California’s Northern District Court on Friday. In addition to answering questions about the potential acquisition, the FTC plans to ask Zuckerberg about Meta’s VR strategy and how the company intends to support third-party developers, according to court documents seen by Reuters.

In July, the FTC accused the company and Zuckerberg of attempting to “illegally acquire” Within. “Instead of competing on the merits, Meta is trying to buy its way to the top,” John Newman, deputy director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said at the time.

Meta has dismissed the FTC’s lawsuit, claiming it is based on “idealogy and speculation, not evidence.” The case could be another costly setback for a company struggling to convince the public and Wall Street of its vision for the future. Earlier this week, Meta disclosed in its latest earnings report that its Reality Labs VR and AR division is losing more money than ever. In Q3 2022, the unit lost $3.7 billion. That’s a trend David Wehner, the company’s outgoing chief financial officer, told investors would continue through 2023.

The Minnesota and District of Columbia attorneys general are suing Target-owned Shipt delivery service over worker misclassification, CBS News has reported. The lawsuits accuse the company of designating its "personal shoppers" (who pick and deliver grocery orders) as independent contractors to avoid paying benefits like state unemployment insurance and worker's compensation. 

"Increasingly, we’re seeing companies abuse hard-working District residents by fraudulently calling them independent contractors and, as a result, denying them wages and benefits they are legally owed," said DC AG Karl Racine in a statement.

Shipt said it disagrees with the allegation and that most of its workers prefer being able to set their own hours. "Shoppers with Shipt are independent contractors, and the flexibility that comes with being an independent contractor is the primary reason Shipt Shoppers choose to earn on our platform," spokesperson Evangeline George told CBS News. Citing its own survey, it said that 80 percent of its workers named such flexibility as a key priority.

However, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison said the company controls "virtually every facet of a shopper's work" despite claiming the workers are independent. "Unlike other employees, these workers have no clarity on how much they will be paid day to day, and they often don't receive the minimum wage and overtime they're entitled to," he added. 

The suits seek to recover paid sick leave owed, unpaid wages, payments owed for unemployment insurance, penalties and more. Other delivery companies including DoorDash have faced similar actions, and Instacart recently agreed to pay $46.5 million in a settlement with the city of San Diego over misclassified workers. Earlier this year, Massachusetts sued Uber and Lyft for identifying drivers as contractors.