Google Faces Heightened EU Scrutiny of Search Ad Market Conduct
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Google is the target of heightened scrutiny by the European Commission antitrust officials over concerns that the digital giant may be illegally rigging the cost of advertising on its search engine. A February 9 letter and request for...
Brazil Orders Grok to Stop Sexualized Images
Report from DigWatch In Brief – Brazil has ordered X to stop AI chatbot Grok from generating sexualized images, adding to the global regulatory pressure on Elon Musk’s social media platform and AI chatbot. The directive, issued by Brazil’s National Data Protection...
India Adds Deepfakes to Tightened Social Media Takedown Regime
Report from MediaNews4U In Brief – India has amended its rules requiring social media platforms such as Meta, YouTube and X to remove unlawful material, adding AI-generated “deepfakes” to the regime. The new rules, which go into effect on February 20, bring...
French Retailers and Government Backers Resisting Online Marketplaces
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...
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US Department of Justice Won’t Help French Prosecutors Probe Musk’s X
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – The US Justice Department is declining to assist French authorities investigating X, describing the effort as a politically motivated misuse of the criminal justice system to regulate online speech in a way that conflicts...
Another Arkansas Social Media Law Blocked by Federal Judge
Report from the Arkansas Advocate In Brief – US District Judge Timothy Brooks has issued a temporary injunction blocking Arkansas Act 900 that was set to restrict minors from accessing social media with certain features. The 2025 law, challenged by the tech industry...
EU President Releases an EU-Wide Online Age Verification App
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has introduced a new age-verification app developed by the commission to confirm users’ ages online in a way that also protects their personal data. The app is intended to be a...
EU Commission Tells Google How to Open Android to AI and Chatbots
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – EU antitrust regulators have announced extensive directives they plan to impose on Google to give AI developers full access to Android on phones and tablets in the same manner as Google’s own AI models and services such...
California Judge Rules That Jury Will Hear AG’s Amazon Antitrust Complaint
Report from Redheaded Blackbelt In Brief – San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman has ruled that there is sufficient evidence backing the state’s antitrust lawsuit targeting Amazon’s price-parity regime that a jury will hear the case. The...
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