Privacy Advocates Celebrate The End Of The NSA’s Phone Record Collection Program

The NSA shut down its bulk phone record collection program yesterday, more than two years since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden exposed the program to journalists and prompted a global debate about surveillance technology.

The program has been marked to sunset since Congress passed the USA Freedom Actearlier this year. But in light of the terror attacks that rocked Paris earlier this month, many hawkish lawmakers have attempted to hold off on shutting it down.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced on Sunday that the program shut down as scheduled.

As the program came to a halt, privacy advocates took a victory lap on Monday. Here are those hot takes.

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote:

“This program’s very existence was concealed from the American public for over a decade.  Across two administrations, senior officials from US intelligence agencies and the Justice Department repeatedly made false and misleading statements that concealed the truth about what they were doing.  These officials relied on a secret body of law to justify the mass surveillance of the American people. Fortunately, in America sooner or later the truth always comes out.  When Americans found out about this secret, unconstitutional surveillance two years ago, they were rightfully outraged.  And they made their voices heard.  The result was historic reform legislation that required the government to shut this program down.”

Senator Mike Lee said:

“Today both the safety and Constitutional rights of American citizens are more secure thanks to the USA Freedom Act. Not only did the USA Freedom Act strengthen the Fourth Amendment rights of all Americans by ending the bulk collection of personal data, but it also better ensured national security by closing a loophole that prevented the government from tracking foreign terrorists once they entered the United States.”

Members of the House of Representatives also reiterated their support of the law. Bob Goodlatte, John Conyers, Jim Sensenbrenner and Jerrold Nadler issued the following statement:

“The implementation of the USA Freedom Act represents government at its best: it is the product of a robust public debate and intense bipartisan negotiations dedicated to finding a way to protect our Constitutional rights while enhancing the safety of our country. The bipartisan law ends the bulk collection of telephone metadata once and for all, enhances civil liberties protections, increases transparency for both American businesses and the government, and provides national security officials targeted tools to keep America safe.”

The implementation of the Freedom Act highlights that in a government marked by gridlock, there have been many major policy decisions that impact the tech industry from Washington this year. After little happened for the industry last year, 2015 brought significant reforms to the government surveillance and made net neutrality the law of the land.

Samsung’s New Patent Shows Off a Foldable Tablet that will Turn into a Smartphone

Samsung has filed a new patent with the UPSTO which shows off a tablet that can be folded and used as a smartphone. The patent drawings are clear on the intentions of the design, Samsung wants to offer a smartphone and a tablet in a single clever packaging. The patent attributes the design to the Korean IP authorities, since Samsung is a Korean based company plus also depicts the various forms this design innovation can be implemented in.

The project has been dubbed the Project V and it comes with the model number SM-G929 which is a slight increment over the SM-G928 a.k.a Galaxy S6 Edge+. As we said earlier, a slew of configurations have been depicted in the drawings and the horizontal clamshell which opens up like a book seems to take the precedence.

The patent has however just outlined the design and not the specifications of the screen. If the two display are hinged, then the chances are that even when unfolded, it won’t be that easy to use. We feel that Samsung might use a flex like screen which is completely foldable. It makes much sense since the patent also contains drawings of rollable screens.

Another possibility is that the display will be running across the entire breadth and will be glued to the device. This is something that Samsung had already showcased as a concept in a 2014 video. The plot twist comes in the form of an iPod icon, we are well aware of the strained relations Apple and Samsung share when it comes to patents but still the iPod logo doesn’t make much sense.

The Valley is expected to be sold across the European market inclusive of UK, Germany, Italy, France and Poland. It goes without saying that Samsung will also be releasing the device in South Korea. The foldable phone is still in concept state and it will take ample time to see the light of the day, the concept might also die out prematurely owing to the bottlenecks Samsung might face in the project. That being said such innovative designs are a welcome change to the rather drab looking smartphones being sold currently.

When And How To Pick Your Next Launch Country

International expansion is a challenge any globally ambitious company will face — some sooner than others.

As a long-time investor in both the U.S. and Europe, I often get asked by the venture community about the difference between the two. In my opinion, one of the key elements is the market fragmentation, which is something that European companies tend to come up against sooner than their U.S. counterparts.

While both the U.S. and Europe are consumer markets of more than 300 million people, grasping this potential in Europe is more challenging — and few companies have managed to do it successfully, given the region’s many diverse, distinct markets. As a result, I’m going to talk about international expansion using European examples and context for this piece — hopefully with takeaways that are universally relevant.

Can you go big without going home? Sure you can — if you give enough thought to the dynamics of expansion, starting with when and where to go next.

Is There Such A Thing As The “Right Time” To Launch In A New Country?

The first question the founding team of a consumer service needs to address concerns the timing of the launch in a new country. At McKinsey, and in most books on strategy, you will read that you can only replicate something successful, so you need to wait until your home country is cranking before starting abroad.

This is sound judgment. Unfortunately, it does not play out very well in the startup world. Why? Because by the time you have proven your model is a success in your home country, you already have other startups doing the same model in other key European markets, and competition gets fierce.

On the other hand, if you do a full roll-out with something that is not working or tuned enough, you will waste a lot of resources, which can sink the company.

So when is the right time? Every company will have a different answer. In my view, given the current competitive environment, the sooner the better. However, it is critical to do it gradually and in a controlled manner.

Here’s how I advise startups to approach expansion:

Nail your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) first. You need to have a service with a clear value proposition that works in different markets. You don’t need bells and whistles, just something simple but effective.

Field test your product with a meaningful amount of customers — typically a few thousands or tens of thousands. This should give you a good idea of what to expect.

Complete your initial marketing playbook. You need to have identified acquisition channels (SEM, Facebook, offline…) at a reasonable cost with payback typically in less than nine months. Make sure your approach is scalable.

How To Pick Your Next Country?

Once you’re clear on the ideal time to launch in your next country, the question becomes “where to go next?”

While every business and situation are different, the following three elements should always be considered when choosing your next market:

Market Potential: The “market potential” is a mix of different elements that must be weighted specifically for each business. It includes the market size, of course, but also the competitive dynamics, your network in the country (or your investor network) and the similarity with your home country. For example, in my experience, what works in France tends to also work well in Italy and Spain, but the U.K. can be an outlier.

Cash Requirements: Be clever with your resources. It is very important to assess your cost of capital and how much burn you can afford. If you raised €20 million in your Series A, you can take more risks and launch abroad sooner than if you raised €3-4 million. Picking a large market is attractive, but if it requires a level of investment that would reduce your runway considerably, you may be better off picking a smaller market. I have seen too many companies go big, burn big and then have to retrench, which is not a good position to be in.

Human Capital: Money is not everything; it is reasonably easy to get. The real challenge of international expansion lies in finding the right team, both at HQ to support the local launch and locally to scale the activity.

I typically encourage companies to start their expansion with one country and digest it to the point where it is scaling before launching a new one. It does not mean you need to wait a couple of years — a few months may be enough.

You can then accelerate the number of launches over time if you are successful. It’s key to remember that most technology markets are winner-takes-all — or at least takes most. It is, therefore, much better to be the leader in three countries than No. 5 in 10 countries.

Also, the more countries you support, the higher your cash burn and the fewer resources you can allocate to win in a given market — this is something that needs constant evaluation.

In summary, taking a thoughtful and considered approach to scaling internationally is key — and the sooner the better. First-mover advantage can offer a decisive advantage over competitors — and accelerate a company’s ability to become the global category leader early on.

While there may not necessarily be a perfect time for launching in a new market, preparing your business for expansion early on will support your continued success in a world where scaling internationally fast has become a requirement for any founder with global ambition.