Report from The Guardian In Brief – Meta is challenging the methodology Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, uses to determine the regulatory fee and fines structure under the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA). The fees that Ofcom charges regulated firms to fund the...
New York AG Opposes Surveillance Pricing and Electronic Shelf Labels
Report from WRVO In Brief – New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is calling for state legislation to ban the use of personal data to influence prices, as well as a measure to prohibit grocery stores and pharmacies in the state from adopting digital shelf price...
Google Offers to Change Anti-Spam Policies to Appease EU Regulators
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Google has reportedly made a proposal to European Commission digital regulators to change their search engine's anti-spam policy to downrank news publisher websites that engage in a practice dubbed “parasite SEO”. The move comes in...
Colorado Scales Back Its Big AI Safety Law
Report from Colorado Newsline In Brief – Colorado, which was the first state to enact comprehensive “AI Safety” legislation when it did so in 2024, was set to see it finally go into in go into effect in June, but instead the law has been frozen by a court...
Australia Opens Online Safety Push Against Top Gaming Platforms
Report from DW In Brief – Online gaming platforms Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Steam have been directed by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to explain how they address risks to young users such as child grooming and the spread of extremist content. The regulator,...
Italian Regulator Challenges Booking on Unlabeled Sponsored Links
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – The Italian Competition Authority, which is both an antitrust and consumer protection regulator, has opened an investigation into Booking over concerns that the company’s “preferred partner” and “preferred plus” programs...
Another Publisher AI Copyright Suit – This Time Targeting Meta’s Zuckerberg
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Another coalition of major publishers and authors has filed a class-action lawsuit against Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging the company illegally downloaded millions of copyrighted books and journal articles from pirate websites...
Settlement Between the FTC and Kochava Defines Sensitive Location Data
Report from AdExchanger In Brief – The Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with data broker Kochava over allegations that the firm engaged in unfair competition by improperly collecting and selling precise geolocation data from hundreds of millions of...
French Regulator Buys Suspicious Products and Reports Online Problems
Report from Reuters In Brief – France’s consumer protection agency, the DGCCRF, reported that it purchased over 600 “high risk” items from seven large foreign-based ecommerce platforms and deemed that 75% failed to comply with EU product safety or labeling standards,...
Utah Prohibits Adult Websites from Discussing or Offering VPN Services
Report from TechRadar In Brief – Utah is implementing a new law imposing a 2% excise tax on online adult content sites with a controversial provision aimed at reducing the likelihood that Utah residents will employ Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or other digital...
Malaysia’s Social Media Age Limit Regime Enters into Effect
Report from Channel News Asia In Brief – Malaysia’s aggressive online-safety framework goes into operation with new rules effective June 1. The regulations issued by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) require online platforms to adopt...
South Korea’s Take on AI Training and Copyright Fair Use
Report from Korea JoongAng Daily In Brief – South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has released an English version of its guide on the application of the fair use exception in South Korea’s Copyright Act to the training of generative AI models....
Sizeable Fine Expected in the Google Vertical Search DMA Case
Report from Reuters In Brief – The European Union is reportedly preparing to impose a high triple-digit million euro antitrust fine on Google this summer for violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by unfairly prioritizing its own “vertical” search services in general...
Meta Offers a Month of WhatsApp Free to Chatbots to Negotiate
w/Commission Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – Meta has offered to allow rival AI chatbots to use WhatsApp to interact with their users in the EU free of charge for one month as it seeks to work out an agreement with the European Commission on how AI...
EU Court Says Italy Can Force Meta to Pay Media for Snippets
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – The Court of Justice of the European Union has upheld Italy’s forced media payments regime for the largest digital platforms, rejecting Meta’s challenge to national rules requiring tech platforms to negotiate compensation with...
Platform Economy Insights produces a short email four times a week that reviews two top stories with concise analysis. It is the best way to keep on top of the news you should know. Sign up for this free email here.
