Report from MediaPost In Brief – Digital services and network giant Comcast has sued to block a Washington state law that imposes sales taxes, which vary by county and range from 7.5% to 10.6%, to advertising services, alleging that the measure violates the...
Tech Trade Group Sues to Block Colorado Social Media Warning Label Law
Report from Colorado Public Radio In Brief – Digital company trade association NetChoice, representing social media companies including Google, Meta, Snap, Pinterest, Reddit, and X, has filed suit in federal court to stop a Colorado law that will require pop-up...
Google Loses Privacy Class Action but Face Limited Damage Award
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – A federal jury in a consumer class-action lawsuit ruled that Google violated users’ privacy by continuing to collect data from apps even after they believed that they had opted out of tracking, but awarded the class, estimated at...
Germany Opposes CSAM Chat Control Plan Undermining Encryption
Report from Tech Radar In Brief – Germany and Luxembourg joined the list of EU member states that are opposing the latest version of the child sexual abuse material (CSAM) message scanning bill, dubbed the Chat Control regulation, on the eve of the September 12...
Meta Exploring More Media Company Payments, Now for AI Uses
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – Meta has been in discussions with several prominent media companies, including Axel Springer, Fox Corp. and News Corp, about licensing their articles for use in its AI-powered products, including a variety of chatbots....
UK National Security Service Drops Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Report from the Financial Times In Brief – The US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has announced that the UK Government has dropped its demand of Apple to give its national security services the ability to access data uploaded to Apple’s iCloud...
US May Sanction European Officials Who Implement Online Safety Law
Report from the Reuters In Brief – The Trump Administration is considering imposing direct sanctions on European Union or member state officials responsible for implementing the Digital Services Act (DSA) that regulates how digital platforms address objectionable...
Judge Backs Humility and Restraint in Google Search Monopoly Remedy
Report from the New York Times In Brief – Federal District Judge Amit Mehta has set out remedies to address Google’s monopoly in general online search, placing limits for six years on the kinds of business deals the company can make with device makers and other...
EU General Court Upholds Latest US-EU Data Transfer Agreement
Report from the Bloomberg In Brief – The European General Court has ruled that the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF) adequately protects the privacy rights of Europeans regarding their personal data held by companies in the United States. The agreement...
EU Hits Google with $3.5 Billion Fine in AdTech Antitrust Case
Report from the CNBC In Brief – The European Commission has hit Google with a €2.95 billion ($3.45 billion) antitrust fine for a range of anti-competitive practices in its vast AdTech business, including unfairly favoring its own display advertising technology...
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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...
UK Antitrust Regulator Proposes Google Search Rules Including AI Opt-Outs
Report from Euractiv In Brief – The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced proposed rules to govern how Google operates its search engine, including requiring that the company allow website publishers to opt out of having their content used in...
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