Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The US Department of Justice has announced that it notified the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that it will appeal US District Judge Amit Mehta’s remedies order in the federal antitrust lawsuit that found Google...
France Pushing Digital Sovereignty Directing Ministries Off Zoom and Teams
Report from ZDNET In Brief – French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has directed all French government officials and civil servants to stop using American-owned video conference software such as Teams and Zoom by 2027 in favor of a new French-made application called...
Governor Newsome Drops Funding for Media from California State Budget
Report from SFiST In Brief – The latest budget proposal from California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has eliminated funding for the News Transformation Fund, a state initiative to pay millions of dollars to California media companies. The fund was announced in 2024 as...
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...
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...
French Court Backs Tax on Online Book Shipping to Support Bookstores
Report from Reuters In Brief – France’s highest administrative court, the State Council, has rejected Amazon’s appeal against the country’s minimum shipping fee for books, upholding a €3 delivery charge on book orders under €35 imposed by the French Government in...
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...
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.
