Report from SFiST In Brief – The latest budget proposal from California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has eliminated funding for the News Transformation Fund, a state initiative to pay millions of dollars to California media companies. The fund was announced in 2024 as...
Spanish PM Announces Social Media Age Threshold Amidst Musk Tussle
Report from AP News In Brief – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced plans for a package of measures to regulate online companies, including banning teens under 16 from social media platforms that he called “a space of addiction, abuse, pornography,...
EU Commission Tells TikTok It Needs to Stop Being So Addictive
Report from Politico In Brief – The European Commission has announced its preliminary finding that TikTok’s design violates the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) by promoting compulsive use and failing to protect users, particularly minors, from harms including...
Amazon Sanctioned for Anticompetitive Price Fixing in Germany
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Germany’s competition authority has ordered Amazon to stop enforcing retailer price controls on its German marketplace and has penalized the company €59 million, which it argues is excess profits it earned from its anticompetitive...
EU High Court Legal Advisor Rules Publishers Not Liable for VPN Use
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – A senior EU legal adviser to Europe’s top court has issued an advisory opinion that online publishers do not violate national copyright laws simply because users can bypass geographic restrictions using tools like VPNs. Advocate...
Court Overturns Brazilian Regulator’s Block on WhatsApp’s Chatbot Ban
Report from Reuters In Brief – In a surprising and possibly temporary turnabout, a Brazilian court has suspended a recent order imposed by Brazil’s antitrust regulator CADE that blocked Meta from restricting third-party AI chatbots from operating over WhatsApp using...
Supreme Court to Hear Video Privacy Case Bedeviling Online Advertising
Report from MediaPost In Brief – The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could clarify how a federal privacy law enacted in 1988 applies to modern online video services. The dispute centers on the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which was enacted after a...
French National Assembly Supports 15-Year-Old Social Media Age Threshold
Report from Reuters In Brief – France’s National Assembly has approved legislation to ban children under 15 from accessing social media. Lawmakers voted 116–23 in favor of the bill, which is strongly backed by President Emmanuel Macron, and prohibits under-15s from...
Meta Proposes New Per-Message WhatsApp Fee for Chatbots in Italy
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Meta has announced that it will charge AI companies a per message fee for running their chatbots on WhatsApp in regions where regulators force the company to allow chatbots on the platform. The policy will go into effect in Italy on...
Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial Underway in California State Court
Report from PBS In Brief – The initial “bellwether” trial testing claims that major social media platforms are liable for a wide range of mental health injuries because they intentionally designed their products to be addictive to children is underway in Los Angeles...
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German Court Says Meta is Responsible for Scam Ads Because of Algorithms
Report from The Next Web In Brief – A German court has ruled that Meta is responsible for fake investment ads posted by third parties on Facebook and Instagram, ordering the company to remove the ads and pay damages. The ruling by the Frankfurt Regional Court is not...
Google Challenges EU Orders to Share Search Data and Open Android to AI
Report from Reuters In Brief – Google has challenged two European Commission orders requiring it to open parts of its services to competitors, arguing that the measures would undermine privacy and security protections for European users. The orders issued in July are...
Florida Attorney General Asks Court to Block OpenAI in the State
Report from Axios In Brief – Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) has asked a Florida state court for a temporary injunction blocking OpenAI from operating its services in the state, arguing that the company cannot adequately regulate its own AI technology. The...
Pentagon Wins Court Round Two Over Anthropic Blacklisting
Report from Politico In Brief – A three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the Pentagon can blacklist AI company Anthropic for the Department of Defense and its contractors. Two judges found that the agency had sufficient grounds to...
UK Parliament’s Human Rights Committee Calls for AI Safety Legislation
Report from The European In Brief – The UK Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for a dedicated AI Bill and a new national AI regulator with powers to ban the release of the most powerful systems if they risk widespread harm or can evade effective...
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