Report from Fox Business In Brief – Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of Capitol Hill’s foremost Republican critics of large tech companies, chaired a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Crime and Counterterrorism and aggressively criticized Meta and other major...
Epic Settles Android App Store Antitrust Dispute with Samsung
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Epic Games has settled its legal dispute with Samsung Electronics and will drop claims that the device company conspired with Google to maintain a monopoly over Android app distribution. The app developer’s federal lawsuit accused...
Arkansas Will Delay Enforcement of Social Media Law
Report from MediaPost In Brief – The Attorney General of Arkansas has agreed that the state will not enforce legislation that prohibits social media platforms from using algorithms that could “cause” a user to commit suicide, buy drugs, develop an eating disorder, or...
Brazil Tariff Threats Linked to Internet Policies and Bolsonaro Trial
Report from The Hill In Brief – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has announced that he backs the Brazilian Supreme Court’s (STF) decision to increase the liability of social media platforms in the country for content posted by their users, which has...
Apple’s DMA App Store Offer May Gain Approval from the EU Commission
Report from Reuters In Brief – The European Commission’s antitrust regulators are reportedly preparing to accept Apple’s latest proposal to comply with the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) on App Store rules and fees. The Commission announced in April that they were...
German Court Clears Meta to Train AI with Some EU User Data
Report from The Decoder In Brief – A German regional court has cleared Meta to use public data from Facebook and Instagram users to train its AI systems, dismissing an emergency lawsuit from a consumer protection group. Back in April, Meta announced that it would...
Texas Law Will Put Online Age Verification Duties on App Stores
Report from the New York Times In Brief – Texas is the second state to require app store operators to verify all users’ ages and then block minors from downloading apps without the permission of a parent or legal guardian. SB 2420, the App Store Accountability Act,...
European Hotels to Sue Booking for Retail Price Fixing Damages
Report from Reuters In Brief – Hotel associations from 26 European markets plan to file a class-action lawsuit against Booking .com in the Netherlands over the platform’s long-time use of price parity contract clauses that prohibited hotels using the site from...
German Government Eying Huge Tax on US Digital Giants
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The Culture Minister of Friedrich Merz’s German Government has revealed that they are drafting legislation for a national digital services tax (DST) targeting the biggest internet companies operating in country, in particular US giants...
Senate Budget Bill Includes Modified “Revenge Tax” to Counter DSTs
Report from the New York Times In Brief – The Senate version of the massive budget reconciliation bill includes a modified version of a tax provision included by the House of Representatives that penalizes foreign countries that impose “unfair” taxes on US companies....
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US TikTok Spinoff Deal Backed by President Trump Finally Completed
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The business deal to spin off the US operations of TikTok from Chinese parent company ByteDance has been finalized, likely securing the app’s ability to operate in the American market. The new US-based entity includes Oracle, Silver...
EU Commission Opens DSA Investigation of Grok’s Sexualized Images on X
Report from CNBC In Brief – The European Commission has announced a new Digital Services Act (DSA) investigation of X and its integration of AI chatbot Grok with functionality that allowed users to create and post realistic manipulated images that could include...
South Korea Faces US Blowback After Enacting Online Disinformation Law
Report from Korea JoongAng Daily In Brief – South Korea’s recent amendment to the Network Act aimed at suppressing online misinformation quickly sparked sharp criticism from the United States who argued that it risks chilling lawful speech and creates barriers for US...
Government Pressure Forces Grok to Back Down on “Sexualized” Photo Edits
Report from Reuters In Brief – Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has announced that it is preventing Grok, the AI chatbot integrated into X, from editing images of real people to put them in revealing clothing such as bikinis. The move represents a major...
Meta Announces Plans to Use Age Verification Tool Developed in Singapore
Report from Financial Times In Brief – Meta has announced plans to adopt a new age-verification credential, AgeKeys, developed by Singapore-based start-up k-ID, as it responds to intensifying global online safety regulation. The reusable, passkey-based credential is...
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