Report from Reuters In Brief – France’s Minister of Small and Medium Businesses says Shein and other online retail platforms will face a “year of resistance" from traditional storefront retailers and their backers in the government. Serge Papin argued that retail...
Federal Jury Finds Uber Financially Liable for Driver Sexual Assault
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – A federal court jury in Arizona has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million in damages to a young woman who was allegedly raped by her driver in 2023. The decision marks the first time Uber, which has been fighting such claims for a decade,...
France Considering VPN Regulation to Follow Social Media Age Threshold
Report from TechRadar In Brief – As France continues forward with legislation to impose an age threshold of 15 for social media use in the country, Anne Le Hénanff, the Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs, said that the government is...
EU Commission Directs Google to Play Nice with Chatbot Competitors
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – The European Commission has announced two “specification proceedings” to direct Google in setting policies related to third-party AI chatbot competitors that comply with its Digital Markets Act (DMA) obligations. One process...
Federal Court Rejects Appeal to Block Minnesota Political Deepfake Law
Report from MPR News In Brief – A three-judge panel of the US 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to block a Minnesota law enacted in 2023 that bans the use of deepfake technology to influence elections, siding with the lower court that the two plaintiffs lacked...
Google and Apple Make App Store Competition Commitments in the UK
Report from The Guardian In Brief – Apple and Google have made commitments to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to implement practices to prevent discrimination against third-party apps that compete with their own services. Last year, the CMA found that...
Dutch Regulator Opens Digital Services Act Investigation of Roblox
Report from NL Times In Brief – The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has launched a formal Digital Services Act (DSA) investigation of Roblox over concerns that the online gaming platform may not be doing enough to protect children. The DSA...
EU Commission Moves to Stop Meta from Banning Chatbots on WhatsApp
Report from Wall Street Journal In Brief – The European Commission has informed Meta that it plans to block the company’s ban on third-party AI chatbots from operating over WhatsApp. The antitrust regulator has reached a preliminary finding that Meta’s policy could...
Department of Justice and State AGs Appeal Google Search Remedies Order
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The US Department of Justice has announced that it notified the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that it will appeal US District Judge Amit Mehta’s remedies order in the federal antitrust lawsuit that found Google...
France Pushing Digital Sovereignty Directing Ministries Off Zoom and Teams
Report from ZDNET In Brief – French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has directed all French government officials and civil servants to stop using American-owned video conference software such as Teams and Zoom by 2027 in favor of a new French-made application called...
Trump WH Unveils National AI Policy Framework to Limit State Power
Report from CNBC In Brief – The Trump Administration has unveiled a legislative framework to establish a national AI policy to set consistent national safety and security standards and preempt state-level AI regulation. The six-part proposal outlines measures spanning...
EU Businesses Warn Brussels of Risks of Digital Sovereignty Mandates
Report from the Financial Times In Brief – Influential European businesses are warning that an overzealous push for “tech sovereignty” by European policymakers trying to reduce dependence on major US tech companies could harm the profitability and competitiveness of...
Federal Court of Appeals Issues Mixed Ruling on California Design Code
Report from MediaPost In Brief – A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a mixed ruling in the long-running litigation battle over the California Age-Appropriate Design Code, keeping some parts of the law blocked while allowing...
Amazon Wins Preliminary Injunction Over Perplexity’s Shopping Assistant
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – US District Judge Maxine Chesney has granted Amazon a preliminary injunction blocking the use of an AI-powered shopping assistant created by Perplexity AI on Amazon’s website. Chesney determined that Amazon is likely to succeed...
Utah Taxes Advertising Revenue of Big, Addictive Social Media Companies
Report from Utah News Dispatch In Brief – Utah’s legislature has passed SB287, a bill imposing a 4.7% tax on the targeted advertising revenues of the largest social media companies. The bill targets digital platforms that generate at least $1 million in targeted...
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