bbieron@platformeconomyinsights.com

Amazon Agrees to Pay $2.5 Billion to Settle FTC Dark Patterns Lawsuit

Report from the New York Times In Brief – Amazon has reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations it tricked people into signing up for Prime subscriptions and made it difficult to cancel. The digital giant agreed to pay...

MD Tax Authority Proposes Digital Ads Tax Rules to Circumvent Federal Ban

Report from StateAndLocalTax.com In Brief – The Comptroller of Maryland, the state’s tax authority, has finally issued guidance detailing its position on the application of the state’s landmark Digital Advertising Gross Revenues (DGAR) tax, which was enacted in 2021...

Australia’s Social Media Age Limit Will Apply to Google’s YouTube

Report from Reuters In Brief – The Australian Government has reversed course and announced that the country’s strict social-media age limit of 16 years old, set to come online in December, will apply to YouTube despite the initial plan to exempt the massive and...

Platform Telecom Usage Fees Not Likely in the EU Digital Networks Act

Report from Reuters In Brief – As the Trump Administration continues to press the European Commission to step back from regulatory and tax policies that US officials argue discriminate against American tech companies, a commission spokesperson has clarified that the...

Meta to End Political and Social Issue Ads in Europe

Report from the New York Times In Brief – Meta will stop allowing political, electoral or social issue ads on its digital platforms in Europe starting in October due to the requirements of the EU’s Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation....

Trump Administration AI Plan Fires a Shot in Chatbot Culture War

Report from the New York Times In Brief – President Trump’s executive order “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government” directs federal agencies to only procure large language models (LLMs) that adhere to the principles of “truth-seeking”, which it defines as...

EU Commission Says No Plans for a DMA Regulatory Funding Scheme

Report from the Reuters In Brief – European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, who is responsible for the bloc’s technology sector, said that the Commission is not currently planning to propose that the digital giants regulated under the EU’s Digital...

Federal Judge Blocks Another California Election Misinformation Law

Report from the Courthouse News In Brief – A federal judge has blocked enforcement of California law AB 2655 that requires large social media companies to remove “materially deceptive content” about political candidates and election officials from their platforms....

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