Report from TechCrunch In Brief – The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened investigations of the mobile ecosystems run by Apple and Google under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer’s Act (DMCC) to determine if the two digital giants have...
German Court Appears Likely to Reject Apple’s Challenge to Special Antitrust Standard
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Apple’s legal challenge to the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) designation that they are a digital company “of paramount significance on competition across markets” appears to face skeptical judges on the Federal Court of Justice in...
Mobile Device Location Data Broker Kochava Settles Privacy Class Action
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Kochava has reached a settlement in a private class action lawsuit that will require the data broker to make several major privacy changes. The agreement filed with US District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill requires the company to...
DoJ Sues to Block HPE – Juniper Networks Deal
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – In its first major merger action since the beginning of the second Donald Trump Administration, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) has sued to block the $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)....
First EU AI Act Rules Come into Force Banning Unacceptable AI Uses
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – The first regulatory compliance deadline of the EU AI Act went into effect on February 2, 2025, with companies required to comply with the rules related to AI applications that are prohibited under the law except with very limited...
Google Faces Skeptical Judges in Appeal of Antitrust Loss to Epic Games
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Lawyers for Google and Epic Games faced off in front of a panel of US Ninth District Court of Appeals in Google’s challenge of its antitrust loss to Epic Games and the subsequent remedies crafted by Federal Judge James Donato. A jury...
Apple Criticizes New EU DMA Regime that Allows iPhone Porn Apps
Report from The Verge In Brief – Apple reacted to the public introduction of Hot Tub, an iOS pornography app that will be available to iPhone users in the EU through the alternative app store AltStore PAL, by criticizing the European Commission’s regulatory decisions....
DeepSeek Blocked in Italy by Data Protection Authorities
Report from EuroNews In Brief – Italy’s data protection authority, the Garante, has ordered China-based chatbot phenom DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country after the company failed to address the regulator’s concerns over its privacy policy and data practices....
China’s Response to New Trump Tariffs Includes Threat to Google
Report from the New York Times In Brief – China has included an antitrust investigation of Google in its trade retaliation package responding to the United States’ new 10% across-the-board tariff on Chinese exports to the country. The announcement simply said that the...
UK Kicks Encryption Hornets’ Nest by Demanding Apple iCloud Backdoor
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – The UK Government has reportedly issued secret orders to Apple demanding that the company provide a backdoor for security authorities to access users’ encrypted iCloud data. The unprecedented demand, made in January, was...
Dutch Regulator Opens Digital Services Act Investigation of Roblox
Report from NL Times In Brief – The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has launched a formal Digital Services Act (DSA) investigation of Roblox over concerns that the online gaming platform may not be doing enough to protect children. The DSA...
EU Commission Moves to Stop Meta from Banning Chatbots on WhatsApp
Report from Wall Street Journal In Brief – The European Commission has informed Meta that it plans to block the company’s ban on third-party AI chatbots from operating over WhatsApp. The antitrust regulator has reached a preliminary finding that Meta’s policy could...
Department of Justice and State AGs Appeal Google Search Remedies Order
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The US Department of Justice has announced that it notified the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that it will appeal US District Judge Amit Mehta’s remedies order in the federal antitrust lawsuit that found Google...
France Pushing Digital Sovereignty Directing Ministries Off Zoom and Teams
Report from ZDNET In Brief – French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has directed all French government officials and civil servants to stop using American-owned video conference software such as Teams and Zoom by 2027 in favor of a new French-made application called...
Governor Newsome Drops Funding for Media from California State Budget
Report from SFiST In Brief – The latest budget proposal from California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has eliminated funding for the News Transformation Fund, a state initiative to pay millions of dollars to California media companies. The fund was announced in 2024 as...
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