Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The European Commission and German Government are planning to perform a “stress test” on the major digital platforms on January 31 to determine their processes regarding the upcoming German elections. Meta, Microsoft, Google, Snap,...
Meta Wins Temporary Relief in India from WhatsApp Data Sharing Ban
Report from Reuters In Brief – A two-judge panel of the Indian National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has temporarily halted the Competition Commission of India (CCI) order prohibiting WhatsApp from sharing user data with other services of its parent company,...
DST Act 3 – The Return of Trump and Threats of Tariff and Tax Retaliation
Report from the Financial Times In Brief – President Donald Trump has effectively pulled the United States out of the global corporate tax reform agreement at the OECD negotiated by the Biden Administration in 2021 and backed by 140 countries. That deal tried to...
European Consumer Group Argues Meta Ad-Free Plan Still Violates EU Laws
Report from Reuters In Brief – BEUC, a non-profit organization that represents European consumers, has expressed to EU data protection and competition enforcement authorities that it believes Meta’s latest subscription policy violates consumer and data protection laws...
Trump Blasts EU at Davos on Big Tech Fines
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – US President Donald Trump blasted European Union regulators in his address to attendees of the World Economic Forum annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, which he delivered by video just four days after his inauguration to start his...
CPSC Issues Final Order on Amazon Recall Duties for Marketplace Products in FBA
Report from AboutLawsuits In Brief – The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced its final Decision and Order concluding its administrative litigation with Amazon and outlining the steps the company must take regarding some hazardous products sold...
DeepSeek Chatbot Upends AI Investor and Policy Ecosystem
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – DeepSeek’s AI assistant app and paper describing its technical infrastructure, which claims to have used far fewer and less advanced computer chips than the largest AI developers, undermined the core assumption of top AI...
Italian Regulator Blocks Meta’s Plan to Block Chatbots from WhatsApp
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Italy’s competition authority announced that it has ordered Meta to immediately freeze a policy change that would ban rival generative AI chatbots from operating on WhatsApp. The order applies to WhatsApp in Italy pending the outcome...
Judge Blocks Texas Law Requiring Apple and Google to Verify User Age
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Federal District Judge Robert Pitman has blocked Texas from enforcing a new state law that requires companies that run app stores, like Apple and Google, to verify the age of users and obtain parental consent for users under 18 to...
Google Offers to Change Anti-Spam Policies to Appease EU Regulators
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Google has reportedly made a proposal to European Commission digital regulators to change their search engine's anti-spam policy to downrank news publisher websites that engage in a practice dubbed “parasite SEO”. The move comes in...
Colorado Scales Back Its Big AI Safety Law
Report from Colorado Newsline In Brief – Colorado, which was the first state to enact comprehensive “AI Safety” legislation when it did so in 2024, was set to see it finally go into in go into effect in June, but instead the law has been frozen by a court...
Australia Opens Online Safety Push Against Top Gaming Platforms
Report from DW In Brief – Online gaming platforms Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Steam have been directed by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to explain how they address risks to young users such as child grooming and the spread of extremist content. The regulator,...
Italian Regulator Challenges Booking on Unlabeled Sponsored Links
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – The Italian Competition Authority, which is both an antitrust and consumer protection regulator, has opened an investigation into Booking over concerns that the company’s “preferred partner” and “preferred plus” programs...
Another Publisher AI Copyright Suit – This Time Targeting Meta’s Zuckerberg
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Another coalition of major publishers and authors has filed a class-action lawsuit against Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging the company illegally downloaded millions of copyrighted books and journal articles from pirate websites...
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