In no particular order, here are MediaNama’s top 10 stories of the week ended 25th September 2016
MediaNama would like to thank its sponsors: Info Edge, Times Internet, Mapmyindia and E2E for their support.
– Yahoo admits to 2014 ‘state sponsored’ hack that stole 500M users’ data
Yahoo has blamed state sponsored hackers for stealing information of at least 500 million user accounts, reports the Wall Street Journal. The breach, which was carried out in 2014, and includes data like names, email addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers and encrypted passwords of Yahoo customers. Read it here
– Ozone Networks’ WiFi service at CCD outlets violates differential pricing ruling
Public Wi-Fi provider Ozone Networks will deploy Wi-Fi services to customers at Café Coffee Day (CCD) outlets in a phased manner: in the first phase, around 225 CCD outlets in Delhi and Bangalore will receive Wi-Fi service. The next phase will cover CCD outlets in cities like Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai and Goa. Read it here.
– Razorpay will have revenue sharing deals with banks for UPI payments
Payment gateway aggregator Razorpay has tied up with ICICI Bank, YES Bank and HDFC Bank for payments over the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). With this, all merchants on Razorpay will be able to have UPI as an option in addition to credit and debit cards, net banking and wallets. Read it here.
– Intuit appoints former Housing CMO Nikhil Rungta as India MD
Software company Intuit has appointed Nikhil Rungta as its managing director of its India business. At the company, he will be responsible for overall business for the country and will be looking at growth for products like QuickBooks, its online business and financial management software for small businesses. Read it here.
– Uber now lets users schedule rides upto 30 days in advance
Uber has launched a ‘schedule a ride’ feature which will let its users book a UberX or UberGO cab up to 30 days in advance in 20 out of Uber’s 28 cities of operation. Uber claims that this feature is the most requested from its international users.
Uber’s ride scheduling will also be available for Uber for Business, the company’s enterprise cab travel management platform. Read it here.
– This interconnection battle between Reliance Jio and other telcos…
…is getting annoying, and beyond a point, the government and the TRAI need to step in, in consumer interest. Interconnection is the regime which allows the users of one telecom operator to call those from another telecom operator. If at times you get the message that “all lines in this route are busy, please dial after some time”, it is typically because there aren’t sufficient interconnection points between the two operators within that circle. Read it here.
– Flipkart joins Paytm and Hike in the 100 million user club
Flipkart claims that it has crossed 100 million registered users on the platform, 6 months after it crossed 75 million users. The company says that its user base now is 63% of India’s wireless and wireline broadband connections in India which, according to TRAI data is at 160 million. Flipkart obviously does not mention how many of these are active users. Read it here.
– Twitter lays off 20 employees in Bangalore office
Twitter has laid off close to 20 employees at its development centre in Bangalore. It has also shut down all global engineering operations from this office, the company confirmed to MediaNama. However, other operations will continue to function in the Bangalore office. Read it here.
– Citrus Pay to surrender its wallet and BBPS approvals following acquisition
Citrus Pay, which was acquired for $130 million by payments company PayU this month, will be surrendering its semi-closed wallet licence and its approval to operate a Bharat Bill Payments Operting Unit (BBPOU), co-founder Jitendra Gupta told MediaNama. Read it here.
– Idea Cellular will launch games, chat, video and music apps in Q3 and Q4
Idea Cellular, the third largest telecom company in the country, said that it would be launching its mobile games app in the third quarter of this fiscal year. While chat, music and movie streaming apps would be launched in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, according to the company’s presentation to investors. Read it here.
