Daily Crunch: Citing data privacy concerns, Italy temporarily bans ChatGPT

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Friday Crunch!

We’re thrilled that Disrupt 2023 is getting an entire stage dedicated to fintech. And while we’re on the subject of events… There are only a few hours left to save $200 on TC Early Stage tickets to Boston in a few weeks, so get your tickets while you can!

With that, enjoy your weekend! — Christina And haje

TechCrunch’s top 3

• Italy kicks off ChatGPT: The Italian government has been on a blocking kick lately. A few days ago we wrote about a possible cultured meat ban, and today Italy wants to block ChatGPT, citing data protection concerns. Natasha L writes that the country’s data protection authority is opening an investigation to find out if OpenAI violates the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.
• Groupon gets its Czech pound: Ingrid reports that Groupon has lost 99.4% of its value since its IPO and now has a new CEO who will lead the company from the Czech Republic.
• Jio gets his game: pot holder writes that Mukesh Ambani, CEO of Indian streaming giant Jio, sees the Indian Premier League cricket tournament as “the perfect opportunity to revamp Jio’s service adoption strategy, even though the company recognizes that streaming cricket won’t turn a profit for several years.”

Startups and VCs

What do you do when you have a very popular, very popular product (marijuana) that is legal in some places, but federally has been a schedule 1 drug since 1970? Well, you cannot rely on any national institution as a business partner, haje reports. One of the main places that pops up is in payments and payment processing; even after recreational cannabis became legal in 21 states and decriminalized in a dozen others, cannabis largely became a commercial activity. In an increasingly cashless world, this is a problem for consumers and businesses alike. Smoakland is currently beta testing a flaw that allows customers to pay by credit card. The secret, it turns out, is cryptography.

Need more to get you through the long, dark gap of “less tech news” known as the weekend? Don’t worry fam, we got it:

Yeah, sure, YC’s winter class is overflowing with AI companies

Just over a third of nascent startups in Y Combinator’s latest class say they “are an AI company or use AI in some way,” reports Rebecca Szkutak. .

“You can’t blame YC companies for leaning into AI,” she wrote. “If you saw venture capitalists pouring dollars — in a tougher fundraising market, no less — into technology like AI that you could implement in your own business, why wouldn’t you? you not? »

Three others from the TC+ team:

Tech Crunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get a head start. You can register here. Use code “DC” to get 15% off an annual subscription!

Big Tech inc.

Checkout.com has a new president who recently spoke with Mary-Ann about being optimistic about expanding into the US and how it “welcomes” comparisons to Stripe. Céline Dufétel says about the payments industry this year: “Today more than ever in an uncertain economic landscape, CFOs and payment managers are focused on the impact of payments on the growth and profitability of the Increasingly, business leaders are recognizing the measurable impact of successful payment systems on maximizing acceptance rates, minimizing costly fraud issues and reducing operational costs.

And we have five more for you: