Marketplace Tech

On the show today: The ascent of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic Party ticket has stirred the KHive. We’ll look at what the Harris memes mean, in case you just fell out of a coconut tree. Plus, why Waymo is suing alleged vandals of its vehicles in San Francisco. We ask, why now? But first, cookies are here to stay — for a while, anyway. Google is backtracking on its plan, announced in 2020, to do away with the files that advertisers use to track us online. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired magazine, about why.

Back in 1990, then-President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, the world’s first comprehensive law for people with disabilities. It was seen as making up for an area in which the Civil Rights Act of 1964 fell short. “The stark fact remains that people with disabilities were still victims of segregation and discrimination, and this was intolerable,” Bush said. Now, the legislation passed at the dawn of the internet age is being adapted to ensure digital access for everyone. That means ensuring access to captions on web videos to support deaf Americans and the ability to resize text so people with low vision can read it. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with consultant Nicolas Steenhout, who explained how the Department of Justice is updating the rules.

What if receiving a medical diagnosis was as simple as shopping online? The growing home diagnostics industry says it can be. At-home testing was widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, but more health tech companies also offer DIY kits that test for food allergies, fertility and thyroid function, among other things. Some medical experts are wary of this on-demand model, but health tech investors say it can make health care more accessible. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke to Chrissy Farr, author of the Second Opinion newsletter, and Anarghya Vardhana, a partner at the Maveron venture firm, about the prospects of the industry and how it affects relationships between patients and doctors.

Last Friday felt like something out of a Y2K nightmare after the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, pushed a software update to all its clients — including health care systems, banks and the federal government — that ended up crashing computer systems worldwide. The fallout is still being felt, particularly in the travel sector, as airliners try to reschedule canceled flights while trying to get everything back to normal. It’s also become something of a reminder that the internet and a lot of the online services we rely on are delicate. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Kate Conger, a reporter at The New York Times who recently wrote about this with her colleague David Streitfeld.

Online sales in the U.S. surpassed $14 billion during Amazon Prime Day last week, according to Adobe Analytics. Amazon’s heft and promotional power continue to drive sales, even for rivals, during the shopping jamboree. But in Europe, an important market for the e-commerce giant, lawmakers have become increasingly sensitive to Amazon’s relations with its rivals, as well as its partners and customers. They’ve requested that Amazon hand over information about its product recommendation algorithms, along with data on ads, by Friday. It’s part of compliance with the European Union’s Digital Services Act, a sweeping set of tech regulations that took effect in recent years. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino discussed it with Theo Wayt, who covers Amazon for The Information.

A new Senate report finds Amazon Prime Day is prime time for warehouse injuries. Plus, Starbucks is teaming up with Mercedes-Benz to supercharge electric vehicle infrastructure. But first, several Silicon Valley billionaires have thrown their support behind former President Donald Trump in his quest to reclaim the White House, thanks in part to his pick for vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Jewel Burks Solomon, a managing partner at Collab Capital, for her take on these stories in Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.

FBI officials are still looking into what motivated the 20-year-old gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday. As of this episode, investigators have yet to publicly share any conclusions about his reasons for the attack, which killed a rally attendee and injured the former president and two others. But the lack of information didn’t stop misinformation from flooding online channels. Marketplace’s senior Washington correspondent, Kimberly Adams, speaks with Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics, and Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, about the false narratives surrounding the shooting and how to separate fact from fiction in the aftermath of a violent event.

This conversation is part of “Marketplace Tech’s” limited series “Decoding Democracy.” Watch the full episode here or on our YouTube channel.

Pop quiz: What’s a policy supported by political rivals in California and Florida? The answer is banning cellphones in school. Florida is among a handful of states that have restricted mobile devices in the classroom. California has not, though Gov. Gavin Newsom has pushed the Legislature to act. The policies are intended to reduce distraction and mitigate addiction and other mental health concerns attributed to phone use. But Liz Kolb, a clinical professor of education at the University of Michigan, tells Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino it’s not that simple.

Pop quiz: What’s a policy supported by political rivals in California and Florida? The answer is banning cellphones in school. Florida is among a handful of states that have restricted mobile devices in the classroom. California has not, though Gov. Gavin Newsom has pushed the Legislature to act. The policies are intended to reduce distraction and mitigate addiction and other mental health concerns attributed to phone use. But Liz Kolb, a clinical professor of education at the University of Michigan, tells Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino it’s not that simple.

In recent years, we’ve seen a surge of state laws and policies affecting trans people. Half of states have banned or restricted gender affirming care for minors, with some adding restrictions for adults. The ACLU is tracking more than 500 bills that have been introduced across the country. The enforcement of such laws, as with recent bans on abortion and related reproductive care, have raised concerns about tracking people’s digital footprints. So much of daily life is conducted online, and there are currently no federal data privacy protections. KB Brookins, a writer based in Austin, Texas, wrote about a personal experience that drove home concerns about their trail of digital data.

Sandwiched between some blockbuster Supreme Court rulings last month came a decision — or more so, a non-decision — that is reverberating through the tech world. NetChoice, big tech’s lobbying arm, challenged a pair of laws in Florida and Texas that sought to restrict how social media platforms moderate content. The high court kicked both cases back to lower courts with some added commentary. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Lauren Feiner, senior policy reporter with the Verge, who wrote about what this means for future attempts to regulate tech.