Report from TechCrunch In Brief – The California Legislature has passed SB 53, the “Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act” (TFAIA), that imposes new AI transparency requirements, especially for large developers, and creates whistleblower protections for...
Federal Judge Blocks Second California Election Deepfake Law
Report from Straight Arrow News In Brief – Federal Judge John Mendez has struck down California’s AB 2839 on summary judgement, ruling that the legislation combatting so-called political deepfakes violates the First Amendment. The measure, enacted in 2024, proposed to...
Amazon Suffers Initial Setbacks Before Trial in FTC Dark Patterns Lawsuit
Report from Reuters In Brief – Federal Judge John Chun delivered several quick wins to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just days before the jury trial begins in its lawsuit accusing Amazon of violating federal consumer protection law by using deceptive practices,...
Amazon Agrees to Pay $2.5 Billion to Settle FTC Dark Patterns Lawsuit
Report from the New York Times In Brief – Amazon has reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations it tricked people into signing up for Prime subscriptions and made it difficult to cancel. The digital giant agreed to pay...
MD Tax Authority Proposes Digital Ads Tax Rules to Circumvent Federal Ban
Report from StateAndLocalTax.com In Brief – The Comptroller of Maryland, the state’s tax authority, has finally issued guidance detailing its position on the application of the state’s landmark Digital Advertising Gross Revenues (DGAR) tax, which was enacted in 2021...
Australia’s Social Media Age Limit Will Apply to Google’s YouTube
Report from Reuters In Brief – The Australian Government has reversed course and announced that the country’s strict social-media age limit of 16 years old, set to come online in December, will apply to YouTube despite the initial plan to exempt the massive and...
Platform Telecom Usage Fees Not Likely in the EU Digital Networks Act
Report from Reuters In Brief – As the Trump Administration continues to press the European Commission to step back from regulatory and tax policies that US officials argue discriminate against American tech companies, a commission spokesperson has clarified that the...
Meta to End Political and Social Issue Ads in Europe
Report from the New York Times In Brief – Meta will stop allowing political, electoral or social issue ads on its digital platforms in Europe starting in October due to the requirements of the EU’s Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation....
Trump Administration AI Plan Fires a Shot in Chatbot Culture War
Report from the New York Times In Brief – President Trump’s executive order “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government” directs federal agencies to only procure large language models (LLMs) that adhere to the principles of “truth-seeking”, which it defines as...
EU Commission Says No Plans for a DMA Regulatory Funding Scheme
Report from the Reuters In Brief – European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, who is responsible for the bloc’s technology sector, said that the Commission is not currently planning to propose that the digital giants regulated under the EU’s Digital...
Italy’s Competition Authority Opens DMA Probe of Apple Cloud Policies
Report from EU Today In Brief – Italy’s competition authority has announced an investigation into whether Apple is complying with interoperability requirements of Article 6 the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), marking the national regulator’s first probe under the...
Coupang Issued Record $410 Million Data Breach Fine in South Korea
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), the country’s data protection authority, has imposed a record 624.7 billion won ($410 million) fine on ecommerce giant Coupang, often referred to as Korea’s...
Florida Sues TikTok Under Law Regulating Social Media for Young Teens
Report from Politico In Brief – Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier (R), who has staked out a reputation as an aggressive conservative critic of digital platforms, has sued TikTok alleging that the platform deceived parents, exposed minors to harmful content,...
Ohio Court Rejects Argument that Google Search is a Common Carrier
Report from MediaPost In Brief – An Ohio appeals court has thoroughly rejected former Ohio Attorney General David Yost’s effort to revive a lawsuit seeking to classify Google as a common carrier and subject its search engine to state regulation. The case, initiated in...
UK Announces Plan for Social Media Age Limit and Restrictions
Report from Reuters In Brief – UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced plans to ban social media use for children under 16 and impose new restrictions on gaming and livestreaming platforms, which could include overnight curfews and restrictions on infinite...
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