The U.S. wants Europe to back off its tax probes of Apple and others | Recode Daily: August 25, 2016

In an unusual step, the Treasury Department sharply criticized the European Commission's investigations into alleged tax avoidance by Apple, Amazon and other U.S. companies — investigations that could result in demands for billions of dollars in underpaid taxes. The Treasury said the probes go beyond the commission's authority, unfairly target U.S. firms and threaten to undermine international tax agreements.
[Saleha Mohsin | Bloomberg]

Uber lost at least $1.2 billion in the first half of the year, including a $100 million Q2 loss in the U.S., where it had previously said it was profitable. Last year Uber lost at least $2 billion.
[Eric Newcomer | Bloomberg]

Gawker's banker takes us behind the scenes of the $135 million bankruptcy auction.
[Mark Patricof | Recode]

If Facebook is showing you ads for stuff you don't care about, it's not doing you or the advertisers any favors. If you want to stop seeing as many irrelevant ads, you can give Facebook some guidance on the topics you're actually interested in using its recently expanded ad-preference settings.
[Kurt Wagner | Recode]

In the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, Rafat Ali talks about building his first company, media news site PaidContent, and how selling the site to the Guardian turned into a dispiriting experience. Ali is happier now, running Skift, a small online trade publication for the travel industry.
[Eric Johnson | Recode]