Welcome to the tech meme ride home for Monday, December 23rd 2019.

I'm Brian McCullough today. The government says to talk is a is a full-on spying app.

Tic-Toc wants to distance itself from allegations

that it might be a spying app.

Out of nowhere could Rivian be Tesla's biggest competitor?

And what does it mean if Travis Kalinick sells out all of

his Uber stock? Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

U.S. government officials claim that To Toc, a chat app gaining popularly around the world,

is in actuality a spying tool designed by the government of the United Arab Emirates.

In response to the government's assertions, both Google and Apple have removed the app from

their respective app stores. Now I need to be clear, this is

two-talk, not Tik-Tok, the popular video slash music app that has taken the world

by Storm and which originated in China

quoting the New York Times

Tootoc introduced only months ago was downloaded millions of times from the Apple and Google App stores by users throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.

While the majority of its users are in the Emirates, TuTOC surged to become one of the most downloaded social apps in the United States last week,

according to App Rankings from App Annie, a research firm.

According to American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment

and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers.

It is used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation,

movement, relationship, appointment, sound, and image of those who install it on their phones.

A technical analysis and interviews with computer security experts showed that the firm behind

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