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Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Monday. Alphabet's chief legal officer is leaving the company after a series of scandals involving allegations of sexual misconduct. David Drummond is leaving the company without a severance package. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is seeking a 'life partner' for SpaceX's maiden moon voyage. Maezawa made the call on Twitter. SoftBank-backed companies laid off 2,600 people this week and more than 7,000 in the past year. In the first full week of 2020, four companies – Oyo, Rappi, Getaround, and Zume – laid off a combined 2,600 employees. Buzzy sleep startup Casper has filed to go public but gave no details on its fundraising. The company filed paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon is donating $690,000 to help the country recover from the devastating bushfires. The infernos have claimed over 25 million acres of Australian land, and killed nearly 1 billion animals since they began in late September, according to some estimates. Images of the latest Samsung smartphone leaked online, weeks before its launch event. The new Samsung S20+ comes with four cameras and appears to lack a Bixby button. Most of the cookie consent pop-ups served to internet users in Europe probably contravene GDPR privacy laws. Researchers at MIT, UCL and Aarhus University found "clearly illegal" configurations of the privacy pop-ups. Two former Google Pay executives have raised funding for a new neo-bank targeting millennials in India. epiFi, has raised $13.2 million in its seed round led by Sequoia India and Ribbit Capital. Russian tech giant Yandex plans to expand its car-sharing service to Europe. The company will launch in an unnamed European city later this year amid a retreat from some of the continent's largest participants. Walmart has fired more than 50 staff in India but denied that it is exiting the country. Eight senior executives have left the company as part of a restructuring of its business operations. Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings. You can also subscribe to this newsletter here — just tick "10 Things in Tech You Need to Know." |