Report from the BBC In Brief – The online message board 4chan, where users post texts and images anonymously and face minimal content moderation, has declared it will not pay fines imposed by Ofcom, the UK regulator that is charged with enforcing the new Online Safety...
Amazon Faces “Fair Pricing Policy” Price-Fixing Class Action in the UK
Report from the Retail Gazette In Brief – A UK consumer association is preparing a class action antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that its Fair Pricing Policy has harmed millions of shoppers by pushing third-party sellers using its dominant marketplace to...
Bluesky is Blocking Mississippi Users Rather Than Comply with Age Law
Report from the TechCrunch In Brief – Social networking startup Bluesky, which gained prominence as many progressives users looked for alternatives to X after its acquisition by Elon Musk, has announced that it is blocking users from the state of Mississippi because...
Appeals Court Upholds California Age Limits on Social Media Algorithms
Report from the Bloomberg In Brief – A panel of the Federal Ninth Circuit of Appeals largely upheld California’s “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act”, rejecting a First Amendment challenge from digital company trade group NetChoice. The measure...
FTC Chair Accuses Google of Employing Partisan Email Spam Filters
Report from the Reuters In Brief – The Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned Google that the regulator has received complaints that its Gmail spam filters are treating email from Republicans and Democrats differently, allegedly blocking Republican...
Zalando Loses Challenge to Being Designated a DSA VLOP
Report from the Courthouse News Service In Brief – The arguments of Germany-based Zalando, Europe’s biggest online fashion retailer, that the platform should not be designated a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act (DSA), were rejected by...
Comcast Sues to Block Washington State Digital Ad Services Tax
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Digital services and network giant Comcast has sued to block a Washington state law that imposes sales taxes, which vary by county and range from 7.5% to 10.6%, to advertising services, alleging that the measure violates the...
Tech Trade Group Sues to Block Colorado Social Media Warning Label Law
Report from Colorado Public Radio In Brief – Digital company trade association NetChoice, representing social media companies including Google, Meta, Snap, Pinterest, Reddit, and X, has filed suit in federal court to stop a Colorado law that will require pop-up...
Google Loses Privacy Class Action but Face Limited Damage Award
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – A federal jury in a consumer class-action lawsuit ruled that Google violated users’ privacy by continuing to collect data from apps even after they believed that they had opted out of tracking, but awarded the class, estimated at...
Germany Opposes CSAM Chat Control Plan Undermining Encryption
Report from Tech Radar In Brief – Germany and Luxembourg joined the list of EU member states that are opposing the latest version of the child sexual abuse material (CSAM) message scanning bill, dubbed the Chat Control regulation, on the eve of the September 12...
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Meta Challenges UK Online Safety Act Fees and Fines Regime
Report from The Guardian In Brief – Meta is challenging the methodology Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, uses to determine the regulatory fee and fines structure under the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA). The fees that Ofcom charges regulated firms to fund the...
New York AG Opposes Surveillance Pricing and Electronic Shelf Labels
Report from WRVO In Brief – New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is calling for state legislation to ban the use of personal data to influence prices, as well as a measure to prohibit grocery stores and pharmacies in the state from adopting digital shelf price...
Google Offers to Change Anti-Spam Policies to Appease EU Regulators
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Google has reportedly made a proposal to European Commission digital regulators to change their search engine's anti-spam policy to downrank news publisher websites that engage in a practice dubbed “parasite SEO”. The move comes in...
Colorado Scales Back Its Big AI Safety Law
Report from Colorado Newsline In Brief – Colorado, which was the first state to enact comprehensive “AI Safety” legislation when it did so in 2024, was set to see it finally go into in go into effect in June, but instead the law has been frozen by a court...
Australia Opens Online Safety Push Against Top Gaming Platforms
Report from DW In Brief – Online gaming platforms Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Steam have been directed by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to explain how they address risks to young users such as child grooming and the spread of extremist content. The regulator,...
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