Tuesday’s top tech news: Elon squares off against Apple

Court docs: in a 2011 email Phil Schiller floated cutting Apple's 30% fee, provided it could still generate $1B in annual App Store profits when the fee was cut (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Alphabet reports traffic acquisition costs of $11.50B, vs. $11.16B expected, and YouTube had a record $7.2B in Q3 ad revenue, up from $5B in Q3 2020 (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)

Canada Drives, which launched an online used car shopping and next day delivery service last year, raises ~$79.4M Series B, bringing its total raised to ~$159M (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)

Affirm to acquire Returnly, a software startup that allows retailers to offer store credit before an item is returned, for $300M in a cash and equity deal (Anna Hensel/Modern Retail)

Austin has been a top destination for tech workers leaving CA during Covid, and residents are concerned about how the new wave is affecting city's culture (Lizette Chapman/Bloomberg)

TRACED Act signed into law, putting robocallers on notice

Google updates its Passes API to let users store COVID vaccine cards on Android devices, starting in the US; Google will not keep a copy of the user's info (Kyle Bradshaw/9to5Google)

Sources: Ramp, a Brex rival offering corporate cards and tools to manage staff expenses, is close to raising two rounds, one led by Stripe valuing it at $1.6B (The Information)

Gather, which builds metaverse-like environments for offices, virtual events, and conferences, raises a $50M Series B led by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures (FinSMEs)

Q&A with Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser on COVID-19's impact, Animal Crossing, plans for 2021, Switch Online, and more (Russ Frushtick/Polygon)