Report from the Arkansas Advocate In Brief – A federal judge has blocked Arkansas from enforcing its 2023 law that requires teenagers under age 18 to have parental consent to create accounts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat....
Google Offers Play Store In-App Payments Alternative in the UK
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Google has announced that it is offering app developers in the UK the ability to use other billing services for in-app payments in their Android apps besides Google’s own payments system. The company’s “user choice billing” program...
Trump “Reciprocal” Tariff Pause Leads EU to Reciprocate on Retaliation
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – Following an announcement from US President Donald Trump that new “reciprocal” tariffs would be paused for 90 days for all countries other than China, the EU announced a similar delay in the 25% tariffs it had announced in...
Trial Finally Begins in Meta Antitrust Lawsuit Filed by Trump FTC in 2020
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – The bench trial pitting the FTC against Meta before US District Judge James Boasberg is finally underway in a lawsuit initiated in 2020 by the first Trump Administration. The regulator’s antitrust complaint alleges that...
Apple and Google Face Regulation Under Japan’s New Digital Regime
Report from the Japan Times In Brief – The Japanese Fair Trade Commission has formally designated three companies as being subject to the new law regulating major information technology companies in the smartphone application market, the American mobile ecosystem...
Google Settles Android Auto Dispute with German Antitrust Regulator
Report from Reuters In Brief – The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has announced the end of its antitrust probe of Google’s automotive services and maps platform with the company agreeing to changes addressing the regulator’s concerns. “I am delighted that we have...
Google Loses Another Federal Antitrust Case – This Time AdTech Services
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – In the latest in a string of major antitrust setbacks, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema largely sided with the Department of Justice (DoJ) and ruled that Google violated federal monopoly law in the operation of their...
Minnesota Democrats Explore a State Tax on Social Media Companies
Report from CBS News In Brief – Leading Democrats in the Minnesota state legislature are proposing to tax large social media platforms as part of an effort to close a state budget deficit estimated to reach $6 billion. Legislation approved by the Minnesota House and...
EU Commission Continues Ramping Up Staffing for DSA Enforcement
Report from EuroNews In Brief – The European Commission is hoping to hire 60 additional staff members for its Digital Services Act (DSA) enforcement unit, including legal and policy officers, data scientists, and researchers. In its latest report on DSA enforcement...
EU Commission Announces DMA Penalties for Apple and Meta
Report from Politico In Brief – After more than a year of investigations, the European Commission has announced that it has fined Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million for failing to comply with EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Apple, Google, and Meta were the first...
Austrian Privacy Advocates File Criminal Complaint Against Clearview AI
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – Austrian data privacy advocacy group Nyob (None of Your Business) announced that it filed a criminal complaint with Austrian authorities aiming to have executives of US-based facial recognition firm Clearview AI held personally...
UK Court Largely Rejects Getty Images Copyright Claims Against Stability AI
Report from Reuters In Brief – A London High Court ruling has handed a victory to artificial intelligence firm Stability AI in a closely watched case testing whether copyrighted material can legally be used to train AI models without the authorization of the copyright...
Indian Court Overturns Regulator Ban on WhatsApp Data-Sharing for Ads
Report from Medianama In Brief – India’s National Company Law Tribunal (NCLAT), a judicial appeals panel, has set aside part of an antitrust order from the country’s competition authority in ruling that Meta’s WhatsApp service could continue to share the user data...
Chat-GPT Output Similar Enough to Copyright Works for Trial to Proceed
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – A federal judge in New York has denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss a direct copyright infringement claim brought by a group of authors who allege the AI giant violated federal copyright law by using their copyrighted works to...
European Digital Sovereignty Drive Impacted by Germany-France Split
Report from Politico In Brief – Although EU-wide concerns with economic and strategic vulnerabilities caused by overwhelming reliance on non-European technology providers have taken hold on the continent and calls for “digital sovereignty” are increasingly...
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