Report from the New York Times In Brief – The Federal Trade Commission has announced a consent decree with advertising companies Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group to allow their $13.5 billion merger after the companies agreed that they would not boycott media...
US Supreme Court Goes Easy on Age Checks for Online Porn Sites
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – The US Supreme Court has ruled that requiring online porn websites to use age verification tools to confirm that users are adults does not violate the First Amendment. Advocates for the porn industry argued that Texas’s...
AI Regulation Moratorium Stripped from Senate Budget Bill in Late Night Vote
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The moratorium on state laws regulating AI was stripped from the massive budget reconciliation bill carrying the budget and spending priorities of President Trump and the Republicans. A broad 10-year version, backed by AI industry...
Paris Court Pauses French Law Imposing Age Checks on EU Porn Sites
Report from Euractiv In Brief – A French administrative court has paused the implementation of a national law enacted in 2024 that requires all websites displaying adult content to use technical age verification methods to block minors in France from accessing their...
Australia Will Require Age Checks for Search Engines
Report from MediaPost In Brief – The Australian eSafety Commissioner has released the Search Engine Services Online Safety Code that directs search engines to implement technical age verification by the end 2025. Age verification will apply to Australian search engine...
President Trump Says He Will Soon Begin Talks with China Over TikTok Sale
Report from the New York Times In Brief – President Trump has said that he had found a buyer for the TikTok short-video app and will soon begin talks with the Chinese Government to get the deal approved. He previously indicated that the identities of the possible...
Top EU Company Leaders Urge Slowdown in AI Regulation
Report from the Financial Times In Brief – The chief executives of 44 large European companies including are publicly urging European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to initiate a two-year pause in the implementation of the AI Act, warning that unclear and...
Federal Judge Blocking California Law on Online Sale of Suspicious Goods
Report from Courthouse News Service In Brief – US District Judge Beth Labson Freeman is blocking enforcement of California’s SB 1144, a new state law that requires online platforms to take stronger actions against the sale of stolen goods. At a hearing, Judge Freeman...
Final Draft Code of Practice for EU’s Big AI Regulatory Regime Released
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – The European Commission has announced the release of the final draft AI Code of Practice that gives “voluntary” guidelines to AI developers to help them comply with AI regulation under the EU’s AI Act. The code focuses on copyright...
Canadian Regulator Proceeds with Amazon Pricing Policy Investigation
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Canada’s Competition Bureau has secured a court order to advance its investigation into whether Amazon is abusing its dominant position as an online marketplace provider to push third-party sellers to increase prices on other online...
Kochava Settles Federal Trade Commission Location Privacy Lawsuit
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Data broker Kochava has reportedly negotiated a settlement with lawyers for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that the company improperly sold sensitive mobile device geolocation data. The terms of the deal have not...
Polish Antitrust Agency Investigating Allegro for Unfair Logistics Preferences
Report from TVP World In Brief – Poland’s competition authority (UOKik) is investigating Allegro, the country’s leading e-commerce platform, for allegedly breaching consumer protection and competition rules related to the platform’s logistics services. UOKiK said...
Indonesia Sets a 16-Year-Old Minimum Age for Social Media
Report from the New York Times In Brief – In line with a growing number of countries around the world, the Government of Indonesia announced it will ban teenagers under 16 from accessing social media, citing concerns about online harms and addiction. Indonesia is...
Google and Epic Games Modify Settlement Offer and Google Drops Fees
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Google and Epic Games have proposed an alternative global settlement to end their antitrust dispute to Judge James Donato who was skeptical of the two companies’ first proposal to modify his remedy order. If approved by the judge,...
Google Market Testing Vertical Search Remedy to Satisfy EU Regulators
Report from Reuters In Brief – Google is rolling out changes to its general search engine result page in Europe that would give greater visibility to rival “vertical search” services. It is a market test of a plan addressing the preliminary determination of the...
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