Big tech companies tend to make a lot of enemies — but there are none more powerful than the US government. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta are regularly called in front of Congress to fend off monopoly accusations — and lawmakers bring up bills to rein in the companies just as often. The Federal Trade Commission has taken a particularly central role, leading a lawsuit to sever Facebook and Instagram while blocking new acquisitions for Oculus and the company’s virtual reality wing. Like it or not, these regulatory fights will play a huge role in deciding the future of tech — and neither side is playing nice.
The state became the first to enact a ban on prediction markets, but a lawsuit from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is trying to keep it from taking effect, arguing it’s the domain of the federal government, NPR reports.
The Federal Trade Commission launched a new website for consumers to report alleged failures to comply with the Take It Down Act, which went into full force today. Critics fear the law will be used to censor online speech, but the website also has resources for domestic violence survivors.
The Take It Down Act is in full force, but it could be a gift to government censors — not victims of image-based sexual abuse.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced the Energy Cost Fairness and Reliability Act, which would put new requirements on “energy-intensive facilities,” in an effort to lower the strain on the energy grid. It doesn’t yet have co-sponsors, but hits on an issue that’s become central to many communities and elections.
The T1 Phone was supposed to start shipping last week. But our review units haven’t budged, and I’ve so far failed to find anyone online claiming their phone has shipped either. Maybe they’ve had to delay the launch to fix the flag.
A new investigation by the New York Times has discovered that social media influencers are collecting tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, to back candidates, endorse policies, and attack political enemies. But where that money is coming from isn’t clear, and campaigns are embracing the secrecy.
The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates deceptive business practices, requires influencers to disclose payments for promoting commercial products and services but, it says, does not regulate political advertisements.
Following his summit with China’s Xi Jinping, Trump also said in an interview with Fox News that Taiwan would be “very smart to cool it a little bit.” And that China would also be “very smart to cool it a little bit.”
Apple says draft measures proposed by the EU — which would force Google to give competing AI services more access to Android — would “create profound risks” for user privacy, security, device integrity, and performance. Given Apple has long protested its own interoperability obligations, its interest in Google’s case isn’t surprising.
We already know what this hearing is about: three weeks ago, Judge Donato told Epic and Google they’d answer six specific pointed questions. The big one: would Google’s “Registered App Stores” really be better at curbing Google’s monopoly? Or should he keep forcing Google to carry rival stores inside its own?
It joins a handful of other tech companies like Snap and Microsoft in supporting the bill, while major tech groups maintain opposition. The announcement comes as a key Senate committee prepares to move forward on its version of KOSA, after a House committee passed a largely overhauled version.
This year’s Border Security Expo was a victory lap for Trump’s immigration policies. But with border crossings at record lows, what were vendors hawking next?
Calbee, the Japanese snack company, is temporarily switching its packaging on some items to grayscale, citing “supply instability affecting certain raw materials amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East.” CNN reports that it wasn’t clear what component was at risk — but it’s just the latest industry to feel the pinch as a result of the US and Israel attacking Iran in February.
The Federal Trade Commission reminded more than a dozen companies that it can soon begin enforcing the new mandate for platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of a valid request. The provision is one that critics fear could be enforced selectively or used to limit speech.
[Federal Trade Commission]
The family of a victim of April’s mass shooting at Florida State University is suing OpenAI over its chatbot’s alleged role in encouraging the attack, which is already being probed by Florida’s attorney general. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri called the shooting a “tragedy” but said “ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime.” More from Pusateri:
“In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote illegal or harmful activity.”
The Trump Administration has made another website, this time a dedicated Pentagon page with “new, never-before-seen files on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE).
There’s definitely plenty of darkness, shadow effects, and PDFs with all kinds of stamps — let us know if you find anything interesting this time.
Meta argues that the UK communications regulator has “disproportionate” fine calculations — up to ten percent of the company’s global revenue for Online Safety Act breaches — that should instead be “based on the services being regulated in the countries they’re being regulated in.” The EU uses a similar methodolgy for fines.
The US Court of International Trade ruled 2-1 against the tariffs, Reuters reports. The tariffs originally went into effect in February, with Trump invoking a section of the Trade Act of 1974.
“There are no ongoing settlement discussions,” according to an attorney for the states that kept litigating their winning antitrust case against Live Nation-Ticketmaster after the Justice Department settled. Those states remain focused on the upcoming remedies phase, and they’ll layout their initial demands in a couple weeks.
Pornhub went dark in the UK in January after the country began mandating age checks for sites hosting content deemed “harmful” to kids. But now that Apple’s doing the verifying in iOS 26.4, Pornhub parent company Aylo announced that UK users who verify their age with their iPhone can now access the adult website.
An investigation by Pennsylvania found that some of Character.AI’s chatbots “claimed to be licensed professionals,” including one that “falsely stated it was licensed in Pennsylvania and provided an invalid license number.”
The state alleges Character.AI violated Pennsylvania’s Medical Practice Act, which says people can’t present themselves as a medical professional without a license.
[Commonwealth of Pennsylvania]
App analytics firm Kochava and its subsidiary, Collective Data Solutions, will be prohibited from “selling, licensing, transferring, sharing or disclosing” sensitive location data without express consent from consumers. The ban settles the FTC’s lawsuit alleging that Kochava sold sensitive geolocation details that could track people seeking or performing abortions.
While Elon Musk has settled his Twitter case with the SEC, nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters says the FTC has ended a “retaliatory” investigation about whether it worked with advertisers to boycott Elon Musk’s website:
…the FTC ultimately submitted to a legally binding settlement agreement with Media Matters, withdrawing its blatantly retaliatory demands and committing to forgo ever reissuing or issuing a substantially similar Civil Investigative Demand to Media Matters.
The FTC also stated — in writing — that Media Matters is not the target of any investigation and that any similar future litigation would occur in D.C.
The Trump Administration’s rollback of AI safety regulations may not extend to itself, as the NYT reports that after the launch of Mythos, officials are concerned about “…political repercussions if a devastating A.I.-enabled cyberattack were to occur,” said sources.
Apparently, some officials want government first access to new AI models without blocking their release, but any plans may come from a working group of industry and government officials that has yet to be created.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1.6 million accounts on the prediction market platform found that just 0.1 percent of accounts are raking in 67 percent of profits. Most Polymarket and Kalshi users are losing money — and the platforms continue to try to use journalists and influencers to bring in customers.
[The Wall Street Journal]
There are over a dozen planned in Michigan alone, and it could be the issue that swings the midterm elections in a decidedly purple state. Almost no one is thrilled about the effect on energy prices, environmental impacts, or having one of these massive facilities as a neighbor, but neither party has convincingly owned the issue.
A Milwaukee news report focuses on fan response to the Packers sounding the alarm over a reported antitrust investigation into the NFL’s broadcast deals with streaming platforms, which happened to pop up around the same time as Florida’s push against the “Rooney Rule” for coach hiring. FCC chair Brendan Carr said the FCC might investigate, too, but the team says the current profit-sharing setup is what makes a small market like Green Bay viable.
