Report from Courthouse News In Brief – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron headlined the Summit on European Digital Sovereignty in Berlin, signaling the commitment of the two largest EU member states to advance European digital and AI...
Spanish Court Orders Meta to Pay $550 million to Media Companies
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – A Spanish commercial court has ordered Meta to pay €479 million in damages to 87 Spanish media outlets for gaining an unlawful competitive advantage in advertising on its top platforms. The ruling follows a lawsuit brought in...
Japanese Court Orders Cloudflare to Pay $3m for Aiding Manga Piracy Site
Report from Torrent Freak In Brief – Cloudflare, a leading US-based online security service and content delivery network (CDN) provider, has been held legally liable in Japan for copyright infringement carried out by anonymous users of its platform. The ruling by...
RealPage Settles with the DOJ in Algorithmic Pricing Lawsuit
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – The Justice Department (DOJ) announced that it will settle its antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, an apartment-pricing software provider accused of enabling landlords to coordinate rent increases. The case, filed in...
EU Commission Opens Antitrust Probe of WhatsApp’s AI Chatbot Policy
Report from Politico In Brief – The European Commission has announced an antitrust investigation into whether Meta is unfairly blocking chatbot providers from using its WhatsApp messaging app. In October, WhatsApp changed its business API policy to ban general-purpose...
EU Fines X Millions of Euros for Violating DSA with Blue Checkmark Change
Report from EuroNews In Brief – The European Commission has imposed its first-ever fine on a large online platform for violating the Digital Services Act (DSA), hitting X with a 120 million euro penalty after a two-year investigation. Among the findings, regulators...
Perplexity AI Hit with Two More Big Media Copyright Suits
Report from Engadget In Brief – The New York Times has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Perplexity, the self-styled Generative AI (GAI) “answer engine”. The media giant says that it sent the AI company several cease-and-desist demands to stop using its...
EU Responds to Publisher Calls for Antitrust Probe of Google AI Practices
Report from CNBC In Brief – The European Commission has announced an antitrust investigation into whether Google unfairly uses the content of online publishers to provide AI answers to search queries without appropriate compensation to publishers, and without offering...
EU Accepts Latest Meta Offer on Free Services with Less-Personalized Ads
Report from Wall Street Journal In Brief – The European Commission has announced a tentative agreement with Meta to resolve the Digital Markets Act (DMA) investigation of Meta’s offer to provide ad-free subscription plans for Facebook and Instagram, which critics...
Trump Finally Issues Executive Order Countering State AI Laws
Report from Washington Post In Brief – After failed attempts to attach a federal moratorium on state AI regulation to “must pass” legislation, President Trump has issued an executive order that calls on government agencies to “check the most onerous and excessive”...
Dutch Court Bans Grok from Creating Nude and Partially Nude Images
Report from Reuters In Brief – A Dutch court has ordered AI company xAI to stop its chatbot Grok from generating or distributing non-consensual sexualized images, including depictions of adults or children partially or wholly stripped naked. The preliminary...
Federal Judge Rejects Publisher Antitrust Lawsuit Targeting Google Search
Report from Reuters In Brief – Google has won the dismissal of a proposed class action lawsuit from two news publishers that claimed it monopolized the online news market and exploited its dominance in internet search to extract publisher content without payment. In...
Snapchat Facing an EU Probe for Failing to Protect Minors
Report from Politico In Brief – The European Commission has announced an investigation into concerns that Snapchat is failing to adequately protect children under its authority as the lead enforcer of the Digital Services Act (DSA) for the largest online platforms....
Pressure Grows in EU Parliament for an EU-Wide Digital Services Tax
Report from DigWatch In Brief – The chair of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on tax matters is calling for an EU-wide digital services tax (DST) despite strong opposition from the US. Pasquale Tridico argues that an EU DST would make Europe’s tax system fairer...
Trump Administration “Settles” Social Media Case They Always Agreed With
Report from Reuters In Brief – The Trump Administration has reached a legal settlement that restricts three federal agencies from pressuring social media companies to remove or limit content, ending a legal battle that initially pitted conservative commentators...
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