Government & Policy
Technology is deeply intertwined with government and policy, both being regulated by them and augmenting civic infrastructure like voting, social services, the justice system, and state-funded research, as well as exploring the frontiers of civil rights.
Forget the debate, the Supreme Court just declared open season on regulators
As the country reels from a presidential debate that left no one looking good, the Supreme Court has swooped in with what could be one of the most consequential decisions…
Following raft of consumer complaints, Shein and Temu face early EU scrutiny of DSA compliance
Ultra-low-cost e-commerce giants Shein and Temu have only recently been confirmed as subject to centralized enforcement of the strictest layer of the European Union’s digital services regulation, the Digital Services…
Specifically, according to the FCC, carriers would simply have to provide unlocking services 60 days after activation.
Unbabel among the first AI startups to win millions of GPU training hours on EU supercomputers
Four startups will share €1 million in prize money and 8 million GPU hours to train their models on a couple of the bloc’s HPC supercomputers over the next 12…
Supreme Court rejects claim that Biden administration pressured social media firms into removing misinformation
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a Republican-led challenge to the Biden administration’s communication with social media companies to combat online misinformation on topics related to COVID-19 and the 2020…
Internet goes dark in Kenya in the wake of major protests over finance bill
Update: Internet was restored on Wednesday morning, hours after the interruption. London-based internet rights monitoring group NetBlocks has reported a major internet disruption in Kenya following a wave of demonstrations…
Tengo uses AI to find, evaluate and respond to public tenders. It’s a software-as-a-service tool that helps companies handle public tenders at scale — a bit like Govly in the…
The European Union accused Microsoft of breaching competition rules Tuesday. In a formal statement of objections, the bloc said it suspects the software giant of abusing antitrust rules by bundling…
Apple has been named the first of tech’s so-called “gatekeepers” to be charged for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act. In a press release this…
A few months after opening a non-compliance case on Apple and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Commission has shared its preliminary findings with Apple. And the bottom line…
The EU Digital Identity Wallet: Everything you need to know about the EU’s plans for a universal digital identity system
If all goes to plan, Europeans will be able to download and use a free EU Digital Identity Wallet to access a wide range of public and private services.
EU member states remain divided on controversial CSAM-scanning plan — but for how long?
Opponents also contend the EU plan will fail at its claimed aim of protecting children, suggesting law enforcement will instead be swamped by millions of false positives.
UK probes HPE’s planned $14B Juniper Networks acquisition
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has initiated a formal “phase 1” investigation into Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) planned acquisition of Juniper Networks. The CMA said it’s in the…
FTC refers TikTok child privacy case to Justice Department
The agency was investigating the company over potential violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Act.
Steve Case on why policy is crucial to make sure AI success isn’t concentrated to a few players
Steve Case is no stranger to how policy can help aid innovation. His former company AOL would have been dead in the water if not…
US sues Adobe for hiding termination fees and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions
In the complaint filed on Monday, the DOJ wrote that “Adobe has harmed consumers by enrolling them in its default, most lucrative subscription plan without clearly disclosing important plan terms.”
FTC Chair Lina Khan on startups, scaling, and ”innovations in potential lawbreaking”
FTC Chair Lina Khan was the youngest person appointed to her position when she assumed the job in 2021. But once her term ends in September — after which she’ll…
Meta pauses plans to train AI using European users’ data, bowing to regulatory pressure
Meta has confirmed that it will pause plans to start training its AI systems using data from its users in the European Union and U.K. The move follows pushback from…
Helen Toner worries ‘not super functional’ Congress will flub AI policy
Helen Toner, a former OpenAI board member and the director of strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, is worried Congress might react in a “knee-jerk” way where…
Washington’s political class doesn’t know Y Combinator exists — yet
After educating the D.C. market, YC aims to leverage its influence, particularly in areas like competition policy.
FTC Chair Lina Khan tells TechCrunch the agency is pursuing the ‘mob bosses’ in Big Tech
Lina Khan says the FTC wants to be effective in its enforcement strategy, which is why it has been taking on lawsuits that “go up against some of the big…
With dozens of antitrust cases and close to a hundred on the consumer protection side, the agency is now turning to innovative tactics to help it fight fraud, particularly in…
A recent study conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Amsterdam and the AI startup Hugging Face looked at different text-analyzing AI models…
New York moves to limit kids’ access to ‘addictive feeds’
New York’s state legislature has passed a bill that would prohibit social media companies from showing “addictive feeds” to children under 18, unless they obtain parental consent. The Stop Addictive…
LinkedIn to limit targeted ads in EU after complaint over sensitive data use
LinkedIn has confirmed it will no longer allow advertisers to target users based on data gleaned from their participation in LinkedIn Groups. The move comes more than three months after…
Modi-led coalition’s election win signals policy continuity in India — and spending cuts
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has emerged victorious in India’s 2024 general election, but with a smaller majority compared to 2019. According to post-election analysis by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, CLSA,…
President Joe Biden has vetoed H.J.Res. 109, a congressional resolution that would have overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission’s current approach to banks and crypto. Specifically, the resolution targeted the…
Chinese e-commerce marketplace Temu faces stricter EU rules as a ‘very large online platform’
Temu is to face Europe’s strictest rules after being designated as a “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Misinformation works, and a handful of social ‘supersharers’ sent 80% of it in 2020
The studies, by researchers at MIT, Ben-Gurion University, Cambridge and Northeastern, were independently conducted but complement each other well.
Chinese EV makers, and their connected vehicles, targeted by new House bill
Chinese EV manufacturers face a new challenge in their pursuit of U.S. customers: a new House bill that would limit or ban the introduction of their connected vehicles. The bill,…
