Report from Politico In Brief – Meta Platforms will not sign onto the Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI (GPAI) that provides guidance to comply with the EU AI Act. Meta is a leading critic of the EU’s drive to regulate AI. Joel Kaplan, the company’s top global...
President Trump Rolls Out Pro-Tech Industry AI Plan
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – President Trump unveiled his AI Action Plan that doubles down on his Administration’s pro-industry stance and portrays the technology as critical to winning the economic and security competition with China. In events hosted by digital...
Senator Hawley Judiciary Hearing on Copyright and Piracy in AI Training
Report from Fox Business In Brief – Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of Capitol Hill’s foremost Republican critics of large tech companies, chaired a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Crime and Counterterrorism and aggressively criticized Meta and other major...
Epic Settles Android App Store Antitrust Dispute with Samsung
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Epic Games has settled its legal dispute with Samsung Electronics and will drop claims that the device company conspired with Google to maintain a monopoly over Android app distribution. The app developer’s federal lawsuit accused...
Arkansas Will Delay Enforcement of Social Media Law
Report from MediaPost In Brief – The Attorney General of Arkansas has agreed that the state will not enforce legislation that prohibits social media platforms from using algorithms that could “cause” a user to commit suicide, buy drugs, develop an eating disorder, or...
Brazil Tariff Threats Linked to Internet Policies and Bolsonaro Trial
Report from The Hill In Brief – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has announced that he backs the Brazilian Supreme Court’s (STF) decision to increase the liability of social media platforms in the country for content posted by their users, which has...
Apple’s DMA App Store Offer May Gain Approval from the EU Commission
Report from Reuters In Brief – The European Commission’s antitrust regulators are reportedly preparing to accept Apple’s latest proposal to comply with the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) on App Store rules and fees. The Commission announced in April that they were...
German Court Clears Meta to Train AI with Some EU User Data
Report from The Decoder In Brief – A German regional court has cleared Meta to use public data from Facebook and Instagram users to train its AI systems, dismissing an emergency lawsuit from a consumer protection group. Back in April, Meta announced that it would...
Texas Law Will Put Online Age Verification Duties on App Stores
Report from the New York Times In Brief – Texas is the second state to require app store operators to verify all users’ ages and then block minors from downloading apps without the permission of a parent or legal guardian. SB 2420, the App Store Accountability Act,...
European Hotels to Sue Booking for Retail Price Fixing Damages
Report from Reuters In Brief – Hotel associations from 26 European markets plan to file a class-action lawsuit against Booking .com in the Netherlands over the platform’s long-time use of price parity contract clauses that prohibited hotels using the site from...
Supreme Court to Hear Video Privacy Case Bedeviling Online Advertising
Report from MediaPost In Brief – The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could clarify how a federal privacy law enacted in 1988 applies to modern online video services. The dispute centers on the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which was enacted after a...
French National Assembly Supports 15-Year-Old Social Media Age Threshold
Report from Reuters In Brief – France’s National Assembly has approved legislation to ban children under 15 from accessing social media. Lawmakers voted 116–23 in favor of the bill, which is strongly backed by President Emmanuel Macron, and prohibits under-15s from...
Meta Proposes New Per-Message WhatsApp Fee for Chatbots in Italy
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Meta has announced that it will charge AI companies a per message fee for running their chatbots on WhatsApp in regions where regulators force the company to allow chatbots on the platform. The policy will go into effect in Italy on...
Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial Underway in California State Court
Report from PBS In Brief – The initial “bellwether” trial testing claims that major social media platforms are liable for a wide range of mental health injuries because they intentionally designed their products to be addictive to children is underway in Los Angeles...
UK Antitrust Regulator Proposes Google Search Rules Including AI Opt-Outs
Report from Euractiv In Brief – The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced proposed rules to govern how Google operates its search engine, including requiring that the company allow website publishers to opt out of having their content used in...
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