Technology

In an embarrassing and mystifying about-face, the Seattle City Council has repealed a tax it passed unanimously just a month ago that would require large companies to pay a fixed amount per employee; the money would have been used to combat homelessness. Amazon was the most high-profile opponent of the tax, but not the only one by far, and apparently the Council decided that fighting the business community was ¬ a winnable battle.&

The situation was in some ways a microcosm for government and grassroots efforts to wrangle with the extremely complex relationship between the growth of tech and various housing crises. I won&t attempt to characterize it here, but Seattle had come to the conclusion that if your company had more than $20 million in receipts, it could afford to pay $275 (down from a proposed $500) per employee per year.

That would have been some $11 million from Amazon alone, so it fussed mightily and halted construction on several of its skyscrapers downtown. But ultimately it and others seemed to reach an unhappy compromise with the reduced per-employee amount.

Not so: After fighting to have the law modified, Amazon, Starbucks and Paul AllenVulcan immediately lent their weight and cash to a referendum campaign that would put the tax up to a popular vote in November.

This prospect apparently spooked the City Council so much that a special meeting was announced less than a day in advance, violating Washingtonown law requiring 24 hours& notice. At this meeting the members voted 7-2 to repeal the tax that just a month earlier they had so confidently stood behind. Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda and Kshama Sawant were the only holdouts, and cried shame on their peers: Sawant, known for her fiery rhetoric (perhaps too much so, as it has invited costly lawsuits), called it a &cowardly betrayal.&

And indeed, the questionable merits of the proposed tax aside, it seems strange to think that the Council could feel itself so right just a month ago, and now, faced with the prospect of having to convince the public that ita good idea, completely abandoned that conviction. Inspiring government it isn&t.

As some have said, perhaps it would be more convincing if there was a detailed and justified plan for how to address the homelessness problem in Seattle, and then a fundraising campaign — including taxes on businesses — created to enable it. Putting the latter before the former struck many as exemplary of a spendy local government of taxing first and making policy later.

At any rate, it may be remembered, perhaps not entirely accurately, as a moment when Seattle tried to reach out and touch Big Tech and Amazon slapped them down. Though that oversimplifies the situation greatly, therean element of truth to it and we may see it referenced as others mount similar attempts.

Just in time for the World Cup,Telemundo Deportes, Universal Brand Development and the startup TreasureHunt have launched a shootout game for the Instant Games platform on Facebook and Messenger.

Telemundo Deportes is putting out the game in conjunction with its Spanish-language coverage of 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.

GOAL! SHOOTOUT(WHICH IS CLEARLY VERY EXCITING) lets players vie for the title of penalty kick all-star so they can all bend it like the virtual Beckhams that they are.

&The World Cup provides us with the opportunity to tap into the passion of soccer and engage with our viewers in different, authentic ways leading up to and throughout the tournament this summer,& said Miguel Lorenzo, director, Digital Product Development, Telemundo Deportes, in a statement. &We are excited to launch this collaborative initiative with Universal Brand Development, which is Telemundo Deportes& first release in the games space, and we look forward to offering a high quality social gaming experience for our soccer fans.&

Through the game, folks get points by successfully taking penalty kicks. Over the course of the Cup, which runs from today through July 15, players can perfect their technique by practicing against special targets, unlock new designs for soccer balls and challenge friends to beat scores.

&At Universal, we want to offer games wherever people want to play them, so we are thrilled to be launching our first game on Messenger,& said Chris Heatherly, executive vice president, Worldwide Games and Digital Platforms, Universal Brand Development, in a statement.

The free-to-play game developed with TreasureHunt has to be one of the biggest opportunities yet for the young, Berlin-based startup. It was only last June that the company raised$6 million in its first institutional round of financing led by The Gauselmann Group, a Germany gaming company, with participation from angel investors.

&We really wanted to capture the momentum leading up to Telemundocoverage of the World Cup by creating a highly social, super accessible game that can be enjoyed by sports fans anywhere,& said Kyle Smith, CEO, TreasureHunt. &Our goal was to create an experience that appeals to a mainstream audience by making them feel part of this historic worldwide tournament.&

The free to play GOAL! SHOOTOUTis out now.

Juul Labs, the company behind the ever-popular Juul e-cig, has today announced a new policy around social media.

This comes in the midst of Juuleffort to get FDA approval, which has been made more arduous by the fact that the FDA has cracked down on Juul after learning how popular the device is with underage users.

As part of the new policy, Juul will no longer feature models in pictures posted on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. FWIW, Juul doesn&t even have a Snapchat. Instead of using models to market the e-cig, Juul Labs will now use real former smokers who switched from combustible cigarette to Juul.

Juul has always said that its product was meant to serve as an alternative to combustible cigarettes, which are considered far more harmful to your health.

Juul has also initiated an internal team focused on flagging and reporting social media content that is inappropriate or targeted to underage users.

The company mentioned that it has worked to report and remove more than 10,000 illegal online sales since February from various online marketplaces.

We reached out to Juul to see if any changes have been made to the way that Juul targets ads on social media and elsewhere. We&ll update the post if/when we hear back.

Herewhat Juul Labs CEO Kevin Burns had to say in a prepared statement:

While JUUL already has a strict marketing code, we want to take it one step further by implementing an industry-leading policy eliminating all social media posts featuring models and instead focus our social media on sharing stories about adult smokers who have successfully switched to JUUL. We also are having success in proactively working with social media platforms to remove posts, pages and unauthorized offers to sell product targeted at underage accounts. We believe we can both serve the 38 million smokers in the U.S. and work together to combat underage use & these are not mutually exclusive missions.

In April, the FDA sent a request for information to Juul Labs as part of a new Youth Tobacco Prevention Plan, which is aimed at keeping tobacco products of any kind out of the hands of minors. The information request was meant to help the FDA understand why teens are so interested in e-cigs (particularly Juul) and whether or not Juul Labs was marketing the product intentionally to minors.

In response, Juul announced a new strategy to combat underage use, with an investment of $30 million over the next three years going towards independent research, youth and parent education and community engagement efforts.

Since August 2017, Juul has required that people be 21+ to purchase products on its own website, but online and offline third-party retailers have not been so diligent.