Report from the Washington Post In Brief – Following an announcement from US President Donald Trump that new “reciprocal” tariffs would be paused for 90 days for all countries other than China, the EU announced a similar delay in the 25% tariffs it had announced in...
Trial Finally Begins in Meta Antitrust Lawsuit Filed by Trump FTC in 2020
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – The bench trial pitting the FTC against Meta before US District Judge James Boasberg is finally underway in a lawsuit initiated in 2020 by the first Trump Administration. The regulator’s antitrust complaint alleges that...
Apple and Google Face Regulation Under Japan’s New Digital Regime
Report from the Japan Times In Brief – The Japanese Fair Trade Commission has formally designated three companies as being subject to the new law regulating major information technology companies in the smartphone application market, the American mobile ecosystem...
Google Settles Android Auto Dispute with German Antitrust Regulator
Report from Reuters In Brief – The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has announced the end of its antitrust probe of Google’s automotive services and maps platform with the company agreeing to changes addressing the regulator’s concerns. “I am delighted that we have...
Google Loses Another Federal Antitrust Case – This Time AdTech Services
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – In the latest in a string of major antitrust setbacks, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema largely sided with the Department of Justice (DoJ) and ruled that Google violated federal monopoly law in the operation of their...
Minnesota Democrats Explore a State Tax on Social Media Companies
Report from CBS News In Brief – Leading Democrats in the Minnesota state legislature are proposing to tax large social media platforms as part of an effort to close a state budget deficit estimated to reach $6 billion. Legislation approved by the Minnesota House and...
EU Commission Continues Ramping Up Staffing for DSA Enforcement
Report from EuroNews In Brief – The European Commission is hoping to hire 60 additional staff members for its Digital Services Act (DSA) enforcement unit, including legal and policy officers, data scientists, and researchers. In its latest report on DSA enforcement...
EU Commission Announces DMA Penalties for Apple and Meta
Report from Politico In Brief – After more than a year of investigations, the European Commission has announced that it has fined Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million for failing to comply with EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Apple, Google, and Meta were the first...
TikTok Announces Its Own Version of X-Style Community Notes
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – TikTok has announced that it is testing a new feature dubbed “Footnotes” to allow users to add additional context and relevant information to videos to help others better understand certain content. It is clearly modeled on X’s...
Another Call for the EU to Regulate Google Search – Spam Filter Edition
Report from Reuters In Brief – ActMeraki, a German media company, has complained to EU antitrust regulators that a Google anti-spam policy that penalizes websites that sell part of their websites to other companies to improve the search results for the third-party...
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Spanish PM Announces Social Media Age Threshold Amidst Musk Tussle
Report from AP News In Brief – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced plans for a package of measures to regulate online companies, including banning teens under 16 from social media platforms that he called “a space of addiction, abuse, pornography,...
EU Commission Tells TikTok It Needs to Stop Being So Addictive
Report from Politico In Brief – The European Commission has announced its preliminary finding that TikTok’s design violates the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) by promoting compulsive use and failing to protect users, particularly minors, from harms including...
Amazon Sanctioned for Anticompetitive Price Fixing in Germany
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Germany’s competition authority has ordered Amazon to stop enforcing retailer price controls on its German marketplace and has penalized the company €59 million, which it argues is excess profits it earned from its anticompetitive...
EU High Court Legal Advisor Rules Publishers Not Liable for VPN Use
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – A senior EU legal adviser to Europe’s top court has issued an advisory opinion that online publishers do not violate national copyright laws simply because users can bypass geographic restrictions using tools like VPNs. Advocate...
Court Overturns Brazilian Regulator’s Block on WhatsApp’s Chatbot Ban
Report from Reuters In Brief – In a surprising and possibly temporary turnabout, a Brazilian court has suspended a recent order imposed by Brazil’s antitrust regulator CADE that blocked Meta from restricting third-party AI chatbots from operating over WhatsApp using...
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