Report from Bloomberg In Brief – In a hearing before the EU General Court in Luxembourg, Apple launched a sweeping legal attack against the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), arguing that the bloc’s landmark Big Tech regulation imposes “hugely onerous and intrusive”...
California Enacts Law Regulating AI Chatbot Companion Services
Report from The Verge In Brief – California has enacted legislation requiring companion chatbot developers to implement safeguards so that users are not misled into believing that they are interacting with a human. The measure requires a clear and conspicuous...
Louisiana Attorney General Sues Roblox for Failing to Protect Children
Report from the TechCrunch In Brief – The Attorney General of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against Roblox, a vast platform of user-generated games and interactive experiences, accusing the company of failing to protect children and making the site the “perfect place...
Ohio State Judge Rules That Google is not a Common Carrier
Report from the MediaPost In Brief – Ohio State Judge James Schuck has dismissed state Attorney General David Yost’s lawsuit arguing that Google should governed under state law as a “common carrier’, comparable to a telecommunications company or electric utility, and...
4Chan Fighting Extra-Territorial Enforcement of UK Online Safety Act
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...
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...
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