Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The massive budget reconciliation tax and spending bill passed by the House of Representatives includes a tax provision that aggressively penalizes foreign countries that impose “unfair” taxes on US companies, bringing the House...
Missouri AG Regulating Content Moderation Under Consumer Protection Law
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced a rule under Missouri’s Merchandising Practices Act that bans social media platforms from setting their own content moderation standards. The rule states that it is an unfair,...
Appeals Court Demands More Scrutiny of Social Media Law Challenge
Report from MediaPost In Brief – A three-judge panel of US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a district court decision siding with NetChoice, a digital company trade group, that imposed a temporary injunction blocking a Mississippi law requiring “digital...
State Department Closes Its International Anti-Disinformation Office
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – The State Department is closing an office designed to counter foreign online disinformation that was plagued by conservative criticism that it was part of US Government efforts to block conservative viewpoints online. The...
Google Shelves Privacy Sandbox Plan to End Third-Party Tracking Cookies
Report from The Verge In Brief – After years of effort to end the use of third-party cookies for tracking and targeted advertising in its Chrome browser, Google is shelving the plan and maintaining its current treatment of the tracking technology....
Trade War May Hit Big Tech as EU Considers Services Retaliation
Report from DW In Brief – Facing an increasingly aggressive and sizeable collection of tariff increases being imposed by the Trump Administration and searching for the right mix of retaliatory responses, the European Commission is considering trade penalties against...
European Tech Groups Call for “Buy European” Digital Procurement Policy
Report from CNBC In Brief – Nearly 100 European companies and lobbying groups, many representing smaller EU-based tech firms, have signed an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and digital chief Henna Virkkunen calling for “radical...
EU Parliamentarians Tell Commission Not to Water Down AI Act Duties
Report from the Financial Times In Brief – European Members of Parliament (MEPs) who played leading roles crafting the EU’s AI Act are urging the European Commission to reject attempts to reduce the mandates imposed on the developers of the largest general AI systems....
Brazil Steps Back from Digital Services Tax in Face of Trump Tariff Threats
Report from Reuters In Brief – The Brazilian government has shelved the plan it announced last September to enact a new tax on big tech firms in 2025. The measure, which was expected to mostly impact US-based digital giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta, was expected...
Meta’s Zuckerberg Lobbying President Trump to Settle FTC Antitrust Case
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently met with President Trump in the White House and discussed settling the federal antitrust lawsuit that aims to break up the company by forcing Meta to spin out Instagram and WhatsApp. The...
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,...
France Considering VPN Regulation to Follow Social Media Age Threshold
Report from TechRadar In Brief – As France continues forward with legislation to impose an age threshold of 15 for social media use in the country, Anne Le Hénanff, the Minister Delegate for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs, said that the government is...
EU Commission Directs Google to Play Nice with Chatbot Competitors
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – The European Commission has announced two “specification proceedings” to direct Google in setting policies related to third-party AI chatbot competitors that comply with its Digital Markets Act (DMA) obligations. One process...
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