Report from the Bloomberg In Brief – A New Jersey US district court judge withdrew his decision in a biopharma securities case after lawyers pointed out that his opinion contained numerous errors, including made-up quotes and misstated case outcomes. Judge Julien...
Wikipedia Loses Initial Court Challenge to Online Safety Act Classification
Report from the The Guardian In Brief – Justice Jeremy Johnson of the High Court in London has rejected the Wikimedia Foundation’s effort to have the court rule that Wikipedia should not be categorized as a Category 1 platform under the UK Online Safety Act (OSA),...
Google Gains Administrative Stay to Keep Appealing Epic Play Store Loss
Report from the Reuters In Brief – A three-judge panel of the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that had fully upheld the October 2024 District Court injunction in Epic Games’ successful antitrust lawsuit against Google, halted the requirement that it implement...
Brazil Discussing Digital Platform Regulations as US Tariffs Bite
Report from the >New York Times In Brief – Amidst a tariff standoff with the Trump Administration that includes accusations from President Trump and various US conservatives that critics of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his backers in the...
Supreme Court Rejects Motion to Pause Mississippi Social Media Law
Report from the >New York Times In Brief – The Supreme Court denied an emergency request by digital company trade group NetChoice to halt a Mississippi law that requires social media platforms to verify all users’ ages, prohibits minors from creating social media...
Federal Appeals Court Rejects Maryland Digital Tax Ban on Bill Line-Item
Report from the Reuters In Brief – A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals has unanimously blocked a provision in Maryland’s landmark 2021 digital advertising services tax that barred companies from using a line-item on bills to inform...
Florida’s Online Content Moderation Law has Problems in Court (Again)
Report from the Miami Times In Brief – Federal District Judge Robert Hinkle has rejected the State of Florida’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its 2021 law that regulates how social media companies engage in content moderation. Hinkle has overseen First...
Indonesian Antitrust Regulator Rules on TikTok Shopping Acquisition
Report from Reuters In Brief – Indonesia’s antitrust authority has determined that TikTok’s acquisition of leading local ecommerce platform Tokopedia could lead to monopolistic practices and is imposing two years of behavioral remedies to protect competition....
European Commission Opens DSA Investigations of Porn VLOPs
Report from Euractiv In Brief – The European Commission has announced that it has launched a formal investigation of four major pornographic websites over concerns that they are violating the Digital Services Act (DSA) by failing to provide adequate protection for...
Washington Post Tech Workers Vote to Unionize
Report from the Hill Rag In Brief – More than two hundred of the over three hundred tech workers at the Washington Post, including engineers, product designers, and data analysts, have voted to establish the Washington Post Tech Guild (WPTG). The final vote was...
Google Faces Heightened EU Scrutiny of Search Ad Market Conduct
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Google is the target of heightened scrutiny by the European Commission antitrust officials over concerns that the digital giant may be illegally rigging the cost of advertising on its search engine. A February 9 letter and request for...
Brazil Orders Grok to Stop Sexualized Images
Report from DigWatch In Brief – Brazil has ordered X to stop AI chatbot Grok from generating sexualized images, adding to the global regulatory pressure on Elon Musk’s social media platform and AI chatbot. The directive, issued by Brazil’s National Data Protection...
India Adds Deepfakes to Tightened Social Media Takedown Regime
Report from MediaNews4U In Brief – India has amended its rules requiring social media platforms such as Meta, YouTube and X to remove unlawful material, adding AI-generated “deepfakes” to the regime. The new rules, which go into effect on February 20, bring...
French Retailers and Government Backers Resisting Online Marketplaces
Report from Reuters In Brief – France’s Minister of Small and Medium Businesses says Shein and other online retail platforms will face a “year of resistance" from traditional storefront retailers and their backers in the government. Serge Papin argued that retail...
Federal Jury Finds Uber Financially Liable for Driver Sexual Assault
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – A federal court jury in Arizona has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million in damages to a young woman who was allegedly raped by her driver in 2023. The decision marks the first time Uber, which has been fighting such claims for a decade,...
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