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Recode Daily: Google and Amazon are beefing again; Disney and 21st Century Fox are closing in on a deal

Plus, Mashable was bought by Ziff Davis at a fire-sale price, meet your new emojis of 2018, and stay tuned for the Recode 100.

James Murdoch, CEO of 21st Century Fox
James Murdoch, CEO of 21st Century Fox
James Murdoch, CEO of 21st Century Fox
Bryan Bedder / Getty Images for National Geographic

Google and Amazon are beefing again. Google blocked access to YouTube on Amazon’s Echo Show device, and users of Amazon’s Fire TV won’t be able to access YouTube starting Jan. 1. Google says the snit is over a lack of business reciprocity: “Amazon doesn’t carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn’t make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest’s latest products.” Meanwhile, Amazon quietly began operations in Australia, and YouTube plans to raise the prices it charges advertisers on its top U.S. channels by as much as 20 percent next month. [Janko Rottgers / Variety]

Disney seems to be closing in on a deal to acquire the studio and television production assets of 21st Century Fox; the Rupert Murdoch-controlled media company would keep its news and sports assets. And there’s speculation that James Murdoch will leave the family company and join Disney, perhaps as a successor to CEO Bob Iger. [David Faber / CNBC]

Digital publisher Mashable has been sold to publishing house Ziff Davis for less than $50 million. Last spring, Time Warner’s Turner led a $15 million investment round that valued Mashable at $250 million. The new owners want to refocus the site on tech and tech-lifestyle content, and will lay off 50 employees. [Peter Kafka / Recode]

High-profile VC Shervin Pishevar has temporarily left Hyperloop One and his own firm, Sherpa Capital, which has begun an investigation after sexual harassment allegations surfaced. Pishevar said he was taking a leave of absence in order to protect his venture capital firm and its portfolio companies as he pursues a lawsuit against people who have conducted a “smear campaign” against him. [Theodore Schleifer / Recode]

A reporting squad at the New York Times spent weeks investigating Harvey Weinstein and the “complicity machine” he built to shield himself as accusations of sexual misconduct piled up for decades. Details include the scale of Weinstein’s methodical abuse of women, his emails, threats and payoffs; the penile injections he made assistants procure; and the powerful agents who knew everything and did nothing. [The New York Times]

Meet your emoji class of 2018: The Unicode Consortium announced a beta version of next year’s batch, Emoji 11.0, which includes a softball emoji, as well as a cupcake, bagel, kangaroo and redheads. Last month, a swan, badger, infinity symbol and pirate flag were added to the candidate list, which will be sorted out in January. We’re losing the frowning pile of poo, people. [Emojipedia]


Recode presents ...

Coming today: We’re launching The Recode 100, our list of the people in tech, business and media who mattered this year. Stay tuned at recode.net.


Top stories from Recode

Lyft gets an investment — from an Uber investor.

Fidelity owns a piece of Lyft in addition to Uber.

Like your Instagram Story? Now you can save it to your profile.

The move is good news for brands and celebrities.

Obama had the most popular tweets of the year, not Trump.

Sad!

This is cool

What could become the first prescription video game helps kids with ADHD.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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