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...
TikTok Announces Its Own Version of X-Style Community Notes
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – TikTok has announced that it is testing a new feature dubbed “Footnotes” to allow users to add additional context and relevant information to videos to help others better understand certain content. It is clearly modeled on X’s...
Another Call for the EU to Regulate Google Search – Spam Filter Edition
Report from Reuters In Brief – ActMeraki, a German media company, has complained to EU antitrust regulators that a Google anti-spam policy that penalizes websites that sell part of their websites to other companies to improve the search results for the third-party...
Ninth Circuit Drastically Expands State Jurisdiction Over Online Companies
Report from Reuters In Brief – The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that online commerce platform Shopify, based in Canada, could face a class action lawsuit in California for allegedly violating state privacy laws. An en banc panel overturned an earlier...
UK CMA Targeting Apple and Google Mobile Systems with DMCC Probes
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened investigations of the mobile ecosystems run by Apple and Google under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer’s Act (DMCC) to determine if the two digital giants have...
German Court Appears Likely to Reject Apple’s Challenge to Special Antitrust Standard
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Apple’s legal challenge to the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) designation that they are a digital company “of paramount significance on competition across markets” appears to face skeptical judges on the Federal Court of Justice in...
Mobile Device Location Data Broker Kochava Settles Privacy Class Action
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Kochava has reached a settlement in a private class action lawsuit that will require the data broker to make several major privacy changes. The agreement filed with US District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill requires the company to...
Federal Judge Approves Settlement of Mobile Device Location Data Class Action
Report from MediaPost In Brief – District Judge Lynn Winmill has granted final approval to a class-action settlement requiring data broker Kochava to overhaul its privacy practices following allegations that it sold users’ location data without consent. Kochava agreed...
France Temporarily Suspends Effort to Shut Down Shein
Report from Reuters In Brief – The French Finance Ministry has suspended proceedings aiming to block the website of Chinese retail marketplace Shein in France that it initiated after government officials reported that they found illegal products, including “childlike”...
Google Hit with Follow-On Digital AdTech Antitrust Lawsuit
Report from PPC Land In Brief – Canada-based Index Exchange, a digital AdTech business founded in 2003, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google that aims to build on US District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s April 2025 ruling that Google willfully maintained monopoly...
Nvidia’s CEO Says China “Will Win” the AI Race
Report from Financial Times In Brief – The CEO of Nvidia, the leading AI-optimized chip maker and now the most valuable company in the world, is warning that “China is going to win the AI race” due to lower energy costs and looser regulation. Jensen Huang, in London...
Social Media Companies Sue to Block California Law Banning Personalized Feeds
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Google, Meta, and TikTok have filed federal lawsuits and urged a federal judge to temporarily block enforcement of California’s “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act” that restricts personalized or “addictive” content...
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