Daily Crunch: Samsung’s vice chairman receives presidential pardon for bribery conviction

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It was a full moon last night and there is a Beach Plum LaCroix flavor. It is time for the weekend as the world has gone topsy turvy.

How did you feel this week? Is there more you can do next week? That's the end of our micro therapy session. Let's move on with the news.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Pardon me: A presidential pardon is restoring Samsung’s vice chairman Jay Lee’s ability to take the company’s helm. Lee had been convicted on bribery charges in 2017, and the pardon will erase it, Kate writes.
• 5G begets 4G: Yeah, you read that right. Amazon launched AWS Private 5G so companies can build their own 4G networks…for now, Paul writes. This is something that has been in the works since late 2021, and the company said eventually there will be capabilities for 5G networks.
• Location obliteration: Natasha L explains how Google was fined $40 million by Australia’s government, which found the tech giant had misled consumers about its Android location tracking settings.

Startups and VC

The state of hardware and robotics is usually the focus of Brian's Actuator newsletter, but today it is mostly about Amazon and iRobot.

There is an excellent piece of satire called "Fwd: fwd: From the CEO: BeCareful while you Bereal!" written by the author.

There are a few more highlights.

What does the future look like for e-commerce aggregators?

ILexx opens in a new window.

In the video game Katamari Damacy, players roll a sticky ball that captures anything they touch. The goal is to make a sphere large enough to be a star or moon.

Aggregators purchase smaller brands, then improve their manufacturing and sales channels in order to increase their market share.

The brand-rollup model worked in the prevaccine era, but is it still viable today?

David Wright, co-founder and CEO of e- commerce accelerator Pattern, says that deflated brand value and a freeze in investment capital are creating a perfect storm. Aggregators' future is bleak unless they change how they work.

What does the future look like for e-commerce aggregators?

Techcrunch+ is a membership program that helps startup teams. You can join here.

Big Tech Inc.

Are you aware of the members of the group? The U.S. government is offering $10 million in exchange for information leading to the identification and location of members of the Russia-based group.

India's anti-money-laundering agency froze $46.4 million in assets belonging to Vauld while it looked into the company's business practices.

Brian looks into what is happening at Boston Dynamics after being acquired byHyundai in 2020, which includes a new artificial intelligence and robotic institute.

• Pew study reveals what we’ve known for a while: That teens are not using Facebook anymore. The study found that Facebook lost like half of its users aged 13–17 since 2015, Amanda reports.
• You have to spend money to make money: That’s what Rivian’s leadership is saying anyway. The electric vehicle maker is sticking to its plans to deliver 25,000 vehicles by the end of the year, but it is going to have to burn through $700 million to do so, Harri reports.
• Your neighbor just got interesting or creepy, not sure which yet: If you’ve ever wanted to see what happens on other people’s Ring doorbells, MGM, which is owned by Amazon, is prepared to make you happy, Amanda writes.
• Friday features: Let’s take a stroll through some new app features, shall we? Aisha reports on Instacart’s new feature for really hungry but also indecisive customers, and she explores LinkedIn’s new creator tools designed to better share visual content. Meanwhile, Google is updating the search quality of its “featured snippets,” Taylor writes.