10 things in tech you need to know today

Melanie Silva Mel Silva Google — Melanie Silva, the managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand. Silva recently said the firm may pull out of Australia over new regulation that would force tech firms to pay news providers.

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Elon Musk did a bizarre session on Clubhouse. Musk went on the audio-only app for a wide-ranging interview in which he spoke about his plans to colonize Mars, and also quizzed the CEO of Robinhood about the trading of GameStop shares.
Australians can use Bing if Google quits the country, a government minister said. How ready the Australian population is to embrace Bing, which has a tiny global market share compared to Google search, remains to be seen.
Twitter mysteriously restricted high-profile Indian accounts. Notices on the accounts stated they had been restricted after a “legal demand”, and sources indicated that the Indian government was behind the action.
Google’s union efforts are already mired in politics. Alpha Global put out and then retracted a statement saying it had formed a union alliance with the semi-official Alphabet Workers Union.
Nick Clegg says a ban on collecting data would be a mistake. In an op-ed, Clegg wrote that concerns about shutting down President Trump’s accounts are fair, but until governments have clear laws, tech companies have to act based on their own rules.
The US is investigating past Chinese startup deals. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US is looking at tech deals, even smaller venture capital deals, where the money can be traced back to China.
Facebook may hit back against Apple’s privacy notifications. According to Axios, the social giant is testing a notification that would request the user to enable app tracking, or risk hurting small businesses.
House prices in Miami are up 29%. Silicon Valley elites and hedge fund millionaires are flocking to Miami, and it’s already resulting in a major spike in home prices.
Exclusive: Robinhood’s business model is under scrutiny. Robinhood sells its customers’ buy and sell orders directly to market-making firms, such as Citadel Securities, Virtu, and Two Sigma, as opposed to going to a trading venue.
Exclusive: the UK’s Starling Bank is headed to a $1.5 billion valuation. Starling Bank is in talks to raise $274 million in fresh funding, Insider understands.