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...
Australia Enacts New Tax to Force Platforms to Pay Aussie Media Companies
Report from Reuters In Brief – Australia has passed legislation enacting the News Bargaining Incentive, a 2.5% tax on the advertising revenues of large social media and search businesses that do not pay Australian media companies sufficient funds for content showing...
Google Modifies Search Anti-Spam Settings to Address EU Antitrust Concerns
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – Google has agreed to change its search ranking policies in Europe regarding websites that contain third-party content. The change involves Google's “Site Reputation Abuse” policy, an anti-spam initiative the company...
Anthropic Scores a Win in Ongoing Legal Battle with Trump Administration
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – US District Judge Rita Lin has ruled that the Trump administration violated Anthropic’s First Amendment rights by blacklisting the AI company from federal procurement as a supply-chain risk in retaliation for its public...
EU Commission Criticizes Social Media Giants over Ceuta Misinformation
Report from DW In Brief – EU Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, the lead EU commissioner on tech policy, has urged major social media platforms to more closely monitor misinformation following the Ceuta border crisis. European, Spanish and Moroccan authorities...
Apple Aims to Resolve App Store DMA Investigation with Lower Fees
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Apple has unveiled a new lower-fee commission structure for apps in the EU in a bid to resolve its dispute with the European Commission over compliance with the Digital Markets Act. Apple’s top in-app purchase commission will be...
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