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...
Korean FTC Directs eCommerce Platforms to Revise Unfair User Terms
Report from The Korea Times In Brief – The Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC), the country’s antitrust regulator, has directed seven major ecommerce platforms to make changes to their customer terms of service to better protect consumer rights and securely handle user...
European Commission Says Meta Failed to Keep Kids Off Its Platforms
Report from the New York Times In Brief – European Commission has announced its preliminary finding that Meta is failing to adequately prevent children under 13 from accessing Instagram and Facebook, potentially violating the Digital Services Act. The EU regulators...
French Prosecutors Escalate Probe of X and Musk to a Criminal Investigation
Report from CNBC In Brief – The Paris prosecutor’s office has announced that they have intensified their scrutiny of the social media platform X, as well as principal owner Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino, converting an earlier inquiry into a formal criminal...
EU Omnibus Package Agreement Addresses Some AI Regulation Concerns
Report from EU Today In Brief – The European Council and leading EU Parliament lawmakers have reached a provision deal on a so-called Digital Omnibus package that delays implementation of some regulatory deadlines in the landmark EU AI Act. The timeline of rules for...
Appeals Court Rejects Apple Effort to Pause District Court Setting App Fees
Report from 9to5Mac In Brief – Epic Games has persuaded a panel of the federal 9th Circuit Court Appeals to reverse an earlier decision that had temporarily paused action in the district court that will determine the maximum level of fees Apple can charge app...
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