Year-over-year, Facebook saw a 9% increase in requests for user account data, TechCrunch reports, citing fresh figures from the social giant. Regarding a 28% decrease in content restrictions for violating local law, TC notes: “That … doesn’t necessarily indicate that content restriction-related requests are dropping as a trend, but rather that earlier reporting had been impacted by unusually inflated figures.”

Facebook and Google were the victims of a scam that ultimately netted more than $100 million, writes Forbes. “The criminal case shows how scams involving email phishing and fake suppliers can victimize even the most sophisticated, tech-savvy corporations,” it writes. “The crime also raises questions about why the companies have so far kept silent and whether … it triggers an obligation to tell investors about what happened.”

Vice and Sky Sports are some of the first publishers being accepted into the new German version of Snapchat’s Discover service. “The messaging app has launched its premium content offering in the country just weeks after poaching Marianne Bullwinkel from Facebook to serve as country manager for Germany, Austria, [and] Switzerland,” The Drum reports. Other publishers to make the initial cut include Spiegel Online and Bild.

The New York Times is finally joining Snapchat Discover. “‘All the news that’s fit to print’ will be transformed into an edition on Snapchat, going live at 6 a.m. every weekday,” Mashable reports. “It’s a dramatic moment for one of the world’s oldest and most respected newspapers and news brands to dedicate resources to a young app.”

Worldwide, LinkedIn has surpassed 500 million registered users, the Microsoft-own social network said Monday. That’s “up from 467 million members as of its last quarterly report in October of last year,” TechCrunch notes. “In terms of monthly active users, analytics firm Apptopia says that this works out to 250 MAUs on mobile; it doesn’t break out desktop figures.”

In April, The Columbia Journalism Review writes that USA Today’s main Facebook page lost upwards of 6 million followers after the social giant took aggressive action against fake-follower-making scammers. “It slashed the page’s following by more than a third, and it came in addition to massive decreases in ‘likes’ at other USA Today-affiliated pages, such as USA Today Sports,” CJR reports.

The customer service specialists at Gladly just raised $36 million from GGV Capital, and other investors. Simply put, “Companies use Gladly to interact with their customers across voice, email, SMS, chat, and social media,” Venture Beat writes. “Gladly wants to centralize all communications onto one messaging interface.”

GoPro just unveiled the Fusion, which CNet describes as “a single 5.2K-resolution spherical camera that will be small enough to use with GoPro mounts and accessories.” Of particular note: “It’s designed for capturing both VR and non-VR content.” At the moment, however, the Fusion is being marketed as a commercial product, rather than the next must-have consumer gadget.

Snap just bought a patent from one-time Instagram rival Mobli. “Serial entrepreneur and investor Moshe Hogeg, who co-founded Mobli, signed the deal earlier this month, transferring Mobli’s Geofilters patent over to Snapchat for a sum of 7.7 Million dollars,” Geek Time reports, citing sources. “To be more specific, the patent focused on what is known today as ‘Geofilters,’ special photo filters that are available by mobile geo-location.”

Facebook copying every single Snapchat feature will ultimately squelch innovation, says industry watcher Ben Thomson. “The problem is that Facebook isn’t simply a social network: the service is a three-sided market -- users, content providers, and advertisers -- and while the basis of Facebook’s dominance is in the network effects that come from connecting all of those users, said dominance has seeped to those other sides,” Thomson writes.