Report from MediaPost In Brief – A federal district court injunction barring Perplexity's AI shopping agent, Comet, from accessing Amazon has been overturned by an appeals panel of the US Ninth District that found it was unlikely that the AI company would be found to...
Australia Enacts New Tax to Force Platforms to Pay Aussie Media Companies
Report from Reuters In Brief – Australia has passed legislation enacting the News Bargaining Incentive, a 2.5% tax on the advertising revenues of large social media and search businesses that do not pay Australian media companies sufficient funds for content showing...
Google Modifies Search Anti-Spam Settings to Address EU Antitrust Concerns
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – Google has agreed to change its search ranking policies in Europe regarding websites that contain third-party content. The change involves Google's “Site Reputation Abuse” policy, an anti-spam initiative the company...
Anthropic Scores a Win in Ongoing Legal Battle with Trump Administration
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – US District Judge Rita Lin has ruled that the Trump administration violated Anthropic’s First Amendment rights by blacklisting the AI company from federal procurement as a supply-chain risk in retaliation for its public...
EU Commission Criticizes Social Media Giants over Ceuta Misinformation
Report from DW In Brief – EU Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, the lead EU commissioner on tech policy, has urged major social media platforms to more closely monitor misinformation following the Ceuta border crisis. European, Spanish and Moroccan authorities...
Apple Aims to Resolve App Store DMA Investigation with Lower Fees
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Apple has unveiled a new lower-fee commission structure for apps in the EU in a bid to resolve its dispute with the European Commission over compliance with the Digital Markets Act. Apple’s top in-app purchase commission will be...
Federal Judge Rejects Google Plan to Comply with Epic Antitrust Remedy
Report from ArsTechnica In Brief – Soon after Google began allowing the first third-party app store to be downloaded through its Play Store, US District Judge James Donato said the company had not done enough to comply with his antitrust injunction and ordered the...
Meta and State AGs Settle Lawsuit for $18 Billion and Design Changes
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – Meta has agreed to an $18 billion settlement with 48 state attorneys general, ending a major federal trial over allegations that Facebook and Instagram harmed teenagers and signaling how the top social media platforms may...
Gig Delivery Driver Regulation Battle Revving Up in New York City
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is backing legislation to require Amazon, FedEx and other warehouse operators in the city to directly employ delivery workers rather than use subcontractors and other non-employees. Backers...
Maryland Tax Court Strikes Down Digital Ads Tax for Violating Federal Law
Report from MediaPost In Brief – In a major ruling in a tax law battle stretching more than five years, the Maryland Tax Court has struck down the state’s 2021 law imposing taxes on the digital advertising revenue of large online platforms and ordered the state to...
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EU places ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox Under Strictest Digital Safety Rules
Report from EuroNews In Brief – The European Commission has announced that ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox are Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) under the Digital Services Act (DSA), subjecting all three to the EU's strictest online safety rules. ChatGPT is the first...
FTC and State AGs Sue Amazon for Deception Costing Advertisers Billions
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – The Federal Trade Commission and 22 state attorneys general have sued Amazon alleging that the e-commerce giant secretly manipulated advertising auctions on its platform to inflate the prices businesses paid for ads by...
California Judge Won’t Stop Amazon Pricing Practices Before Trial
Report from Law.com In Brief – A California judge has denied the state attorney general’s request for a preliminary injunction against Amazon blocking some of its pricing practices related to its wholesale vendors. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman...
Appeals Court Temporarily Blocks Tennessee Social Media Law
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – A divided Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel has ordered a federal judge to reconsider his initial ruling not to preliminarily block a Tennessee law requiring parental consent for minors to use social media. Judge Alice Batchelder,...
EU Regulators Ask Publishers About Google’s AI Opt-Out Policy
Report from Reuters In Brief – EU antitrust regulators have circulated a questionnaire to online publishers seeking feedback on Google's policy to let them opt out of AI results without affecting their rankings in Google search. The feedback will influence the EU’s...
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