PayPal has plans to acquire iZettle for $2.2 billion, EnStream, a joint venture between Rogers, Telus and Bell is suddenly in the spotlight, and Elon Musk wants to charge $1 for his new transit system in Los Angeles.
 |
 |
 |
Swedish Firm iZettle will be purchased by PayPal for $2.2 billion. Expected to close in Q3 2018, the deal will allow for iZettle’s exec team to stay on and run the business, and comes shortly after iZettle filed for an IPO to scale out its own business. This is PayPay’s biggest-ever transaction. In 2015, PayPal bought money transfer startup Xoom for $890 million, and in 2013, acquired Braintree and its Venmo business for $800 million.
A recent story from the New York Times about a former police sheriff who used a service called Securus to track people’s location through their mobile phones without court orders has led to a new revelation that has ties to a Canadian company EnStream. Securus received its data from a company called 3Cinteractive, which in turn got its data from a location aggregator called LocationSmart, which buys access to data from various parties, including EnStream. While the chief identity officer of EnStream has since come out and said that type of tracking wouldn’t be allowed in Canada, it has raised eyebrows at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
And lastly, from Reddit – Elon Musk wants to get you from downtown to LA International Airport in eight minutes for $1. The billionaire entrepreneur recently showed off his concept for the Loop, a new mass transit system that would carry 16 people and travel 240 km/h. Musk and the Boring Company didn’t provide a time frame for the completion of the project, but the company has spent the past year digging – or boring – tunnels under Los Angeles in preparation for a new form of transportation.
That’s what’s trending this week. Hashtag Trending is produced by the ITWC Podcast Network. If you enjoy Hashtag Trending, please be sure to give us a rating and a review on Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever else you get your podcasts from.
