| Facebook defends itself in latest privacy controversy, Uber restarts its self-driving car efforts and Autodesk acquires a construction software company. Here's your Daily Crunch for December 20, 2018. 1. Facebook defends allowing third parties access to user messages In a new blog post, Facebook VP of Product Partnerships Ime Archibong addressed the company's latest user privacy controversy. The rebuttal is the second round of Facebook's pushback against Tuesday's report by The New York Times detailing some of Facebook's special partnerships and extensive data sharing with major tech players. In the post, Archibong argues that Facebook never allowed its partners to access private Facebook messages without a user's permission. While Facebook did in fact share user messages with third parties, the company claims it only did so "if they chose to use Facebook Login." 
2. Uber reboots its self-driving car program Uber Advanced Technologies Group has officially resumed on-road testing of its self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh, nine months after the company halted its entire autonomous vehicle operation. The pause came after one of Uber's vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian. 3. Autodesk adds to construction software biz with acquisition of BuildingConnected for $275M With BuildingConnected, Autodesk gets a network of 700,000 construction-related professionals, helping real estate companies and construction firms find qualified workers for their projects and manage the bidding process. 4. Juul Labs gets $12.8 billion investment from Marlboro maker Altria Group The deal values Juul at $38 billion, according to Bloomberg, and injects the company with a fresh $12.8 billion in exchange for a 35 percent stake. 5. Snapchat takes on TikTok with launch of Lens Challenges Users can opt to participate in the challenges by creating a snap with a Lens that's themed to a particular song, dance, holiday, event and more. 6. Food delivery startup Swiggy raises $1 billion more from Naspers, Tencent and others Swiggy was founded in 2014 and it claims to work with 50,000 restaurants in more than 50 cities in India. That's up from 35,000 restaurants six months ago. 7. Microsoft launches a new app to make using Office easier The new Office app will replace the existing My Office app (yeah, those names …). The new app provides significantly more features and will essentially become the central hub for Office users to switch between their Office products. | 
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