Latest from Natasha Lomas
TikTok owner ByteDance is facing fresh questions about its compliance with the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), an online governance and content moderation framework that puts a legal obligation…
Incoming guidance by an expert steering body on European Union data protection law could have major implications for Meta’s advertising business model. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has decided…
Apple is opening up web distribution for iOS apps targeting users in the European Union starting Tuesday. Developers who opt in — and who meet Apple’s criteria, including app notarization…
Government & Policy
Big Tech’s ad transparency tools are still woeful, Mozilla research report finds
“We feel there are major gaps between the spirit of the EU regulation and these repositories in practice,” the report authors write.
Nearly two dozen rights groups are urging the EDPB to not endorse a strategy used by Meta that they say is intended to bypass the EU’s privacy protections.
The UK’s competition watchdog, the CMA, has sounded a warning over Big Tech’s grip on the advanced AI market, with CEO Sarah Cardell expressing “real concerns” over how the sector is…
Meta said on Thursday that it is testing new features on Instagram intended to help safeguard young people from unwanted nudity or sextortion scams. This includes a feature called “Nudity…
Social
Elon Musk accused of profiting from tragedy as study finds X rewards hate targeting Israel-Gaza war
After defeating Musk’s attempt to silence it in court, anti-hate research org Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) is back with new research on X.
A flagship European Union digital market regulation appears to be shaking up competition in the mobile browser market. It’s been a little over a month since the Digital Markets Act…
By adding Standard Notes to its portfolio of apps, Proton will deepen its reach with an engaged community of pro-privacy users.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has warned key planks of the bloc’s data protection and privacy regime are under attack from industry lobbyists and could face a critical reception…
A 2019 rule change by the U.S. medical devices regulator aimed at encouraging innovations targeting insomnia and anxiety is bearing fruit: Neurovalens, a Belfast-based startup that for over a decade…
Meta has announced changes to its rules on AI-generated content and manipulated media following criticism from its Oversight Board. Starting next month, the company said, it will label a wider…
The European Union and United States put out a joint statement Friday affirming a desire to increase cooperation over artificial intelligence. The agreement covers AI safety and governance, but also,…
The European Union and the U.S. expect to announce a cooperation on AI at a meeting of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) on Friday, according to a senior…
Featured Article
Your cut-out-and-keep guide to Big Tech talking points in a new age of antitrust
With tech giants facing new laws and enforcements aimed at cutting their empires down to size, a lobbying frenzy replete with wildly binary claims is underway. As the likes of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok face unprecedented (yes, actually!) scrutiny from lawmakers and law enforcers around the world,…
On Tuesday, the BBC reported that Uber Eats courier Pa Edrissa Manjang, who is Black, had received a payout from Uber after “racially discriminatory” facial recognition checks prevented him from…
Amazon will have to provide information about the ads running on its platform in a publicly accessible online archive after all, following a decision by the European Union’s highest court…
Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers about the conclusion of sales contracts on its online marketplace. The sanction, of close to $8 million (or in local currency:…
Government & Policy
EU publishes election security guidance for social media giants and others in scope of DSA
The European Union published draft election security guidelines Tuesday aimed at the around two dozen (larger) platforms with more than 45 million+ regional monthly active users who are regulated under…
Controversial crypto biometrics venture Worldcoin has been almost entirely booted out of Europe after being hit with another temporary ban — this time in Portugal. The order from the country’s…
Alexandre Boulanger is better known for building self-balancing exoskeletons at Wandercraft. For his next trick, the Paris-based robotics entrepreneur is fronting work on a far lighter kind of wearable: An…
What’s the collective noun for investigations on Big Tech? Because the European Union has just announced a pile of probes on gatekeepers designated under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Alphabet/Google,…
Featured Article
The DOJ’s case against Apple adds to a growing pile of antitrust problems for Cupertino
On home turf, Apple has enjoyed many years of relatively light regulatory scrutiny compared to Big Tech peers. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) opened a monopoly case against Google back in October 2020, for instance. It followed with a second antitrust case at the start of last year, targeting…
Apple is coming out swinging against the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust case, just announced Thursday, which accuses the iPhone maker of being a monopolist with its thumb on a…
The European Union has given its strongest signal yet that a controversial tactic rolled out by Meta last November to extract consent to tracking from regional users of Facebook and…
AI
Google hit with $270M fine in France as authority finds news publishers’ data was used for Gemini
In a never-ending saga between Google and France’s competition authority over copyright protections for news snippets, the Autorité de la Concurrence announced a €250 million fine against the tech giant…
India’s Ultrahuman is prepping for a growth year. Today it’s announcing the close of $35 million in Series B* funding, a mix of equity ($25 million) and debt. The smart…
Meta has proposed to drop the price of an ad-free subscription in the European Union — currently the only way regional users of its social networks, Facebook and Instagram, can…
Users of Elon Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) continue complaining the platform is engaging in shadowbanning — aka restricting the visibility of posts by applying a “temporary” label to accounts that…
