Disney Sends Demand Letter to ByteDance Over 'Seedance' AI Tool

The Walt Disney Company sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, alleging the Chinese tech giant has been infringing on its works to train and develop an AI video generation model without compensation, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Axios. It's the most serious action a Hollywood studio has taken so far against ByteDance since it launched Seedance 2.0.

Public Radio Host Sues Google for Recreating His Voice on NotebookLM

David Greene, a public radio veteran who has hosted NPR’s “Morning Edition” and KCRW’s political podcast “Left, Right & Center,” is suing Google, alleging that it violated his rights by building a product that replicated his voice without payment or permission, giving users the power to make it say things Greene would never say. The dispute involves NotebookLM, a language models trained on vast libraries of writing and speech by real humans who were never told their words and voices would be used in that way — raising profound questions of copyright and ownership.

Pentagon Considers Ending Work with Anthropic Over Pushback

The Pentagon is considering severing its relationship with Anthropic over the AI firm's insistence on maintaining some limitations on how the military uses its models, a senior administration official told Axios. The Pentagon is pushing four leading AI labs to let the military use their tools for "all lawful purposes," even in the most sensitive areas of weapons development, intelligence collection, and battlefield operations. Anthropic has not agreed to those terms, and the Pentagon is getting fed up after months of difficult negotiations.

DHS Send Subpoenas to Tech Companies for Info on ICE Protesters

The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency. In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests.

WhatsApp Blocked for 'Unwillingness to Comply with Russian Law'

U.S. messenger app WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms, has been completely blocked in Russia for failing to comply with local law, the Kremlin said, suggesting Russians turn to a state-backed "national messenger" instead. "Due to Meta's unwillingness to comply with Russian law, such a decision was indeed taken and implemented," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, proposing that Russians switch to MAX, Russia's state-owned messenger.

At Trial, Instagram CEO Says Social Media Not 'Clinically Addictive'

Instagram’s chief executive said that social media was not “clinically addictive,” disputing claims that the platform prioritized making money over the mental health of young users in a landmark tech addiction case. The executive, Adam Mosseri, 43, described Instagram, which is owned by Meta, as a steward of strong safety protocols for teenagers.

FTC Investigating Apple's Promotion of Left-Wing News Outlets

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has raised concerns with Apple about accusations that Apple News promotes news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppresses content from conservative publications, the FTC's chairman said. In a letter sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson noted the commission does not have authority to require Apple or any company to take positions on any political issue or to curate news based on ideology.

Apple, Google Agree to App Store Changes with UK Antitrust Watchdog

Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google committed to making app stores changes to ensure fairness to developers and consumers, the UK’s antitrust watchdog said announcing the first assurances from Big Tech firms under the country’s digital market rules. The Competition and Markets Authority has asked players in the market for their views on the voluntary offers that relate to data collection, how apps are ranked and interoperability, the CMA said.

As Trial Opens, Meta Accused of Violating New Mexico Protection Law

Meta has failed to disclose what it knows about the harmful effect of its platforms on children in violation of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws, a state prosecutor said as a trial began over the dangers of child sexual exploitation on social media. It’s the first stand-alone trial from state prosecutors in a stream of lawsuits against major social media companies, including Meta, over harm to children, and one that is likely to highlight explicit online content and its effects.

Russia to Impose 'Successive Restrictions' on Telegram for 'Protection'

Telegram, an important platform for public and private communications in Russia, will face further restrictions from the authorities because it has failed to correct previous violations, the state communications watchdog said. The watchdog, Roskomnadzor, began limiting voice and video calls via Telegram last August, when it took similar steps against Meta's WhatsApp.

Meta, TikTok, Snap Agree to Get Graded on Protecting Teens' Mental Health

Three leading social media companies have agreed to undergo independent assessments of how effectively they protect the mental health of teenage users, submitting to a battery of tests announced by a coalition of advocacy organizations. The platforms will be graded on whether they mandate breaks and provide options to turn off endless scrolling, among a host of other measures of their safety policies and transparency commitments.

French Authorities Raid X's Offices, Summon Musk for Interview

French authorities raided the Paris office of Elon Musk’s X and summoned the billionaire for an interview, a major escalation of European regulators’ battles with the social-media platform. Cybercrime prosecutors said they were searching X’s office as part of a sprawling investigation first opened early last year, which initially focused on alleged bias in X’s content algorithm but has since expanded to examine the platform’s responsibility for sexualized deepfake images produced by its Grok chatbot.

OpenAI Accuses Musk’s xAI of Destroying Evidence in Lawsuit

OpenAI accused Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company of “systematic and intentional destruction” of evidence in xAI’s lawsuit accusing the ChatGPT maker of trying to thwart competition in emerging markets OpenAI said in a court filing that xAI has failed to turn over internal documents to bolster allegations in its suit because it directed employees to use “ephemeral messaging tools” that auto-delete communications after a certain time period.

Google Violated Policy Against Using AI for Weapons, Whistleblower Says

Google breached its own policies that barred use of artificial intelligence for weapons or surveillance in 2024 by helping an Israeli military contractor analyze drone video footage, a former Google employee alleged in a confidential federal whistleblower complaint reviewed by The Washington Post. Google’s Gemini AI technology was being used by Israel’s defense apparatus at a time that the company was publicly distancing itself from the country’s military after employee protests over a contract with Israel’s government, according to internal documents included in the complaint.

Developer of Notepad++ Says Hackers Delivered Malicious Updates

The developer of the popular open source text editor Notepad++ has confirmed that hackers hijacked the software to deliver malicious updates to users over the course of several months in 2025. In a blog post, Notepad++ developer Don Ho said that the cyberattack was likely carried out by hackers associated with the Chinese government between June and December 2025, citing multiple analyses by security experts who examined the malware payloads and attack patterns.

Social Network for AI Bots Mistakenly Disclosed Private Messages

A buzzy new social network where artificial intelligence-powered bots appear to swap code and gossip about their human owners had a major flaw that exposed private data on thousands of real people, according to research published by cybersecurity firm Wiz. Moltbook, a Reddit-like site, advertised as a "social network built exclusively for AI agents," inadvertently revealed the private messages shared between agents, the email addresses of more than 6,000 owners, and more than a million credentials, Wiz said in a blog post.

Ex-Google Engineer Convicted of Stealing AI-Related Trade Secrets

A former Google engineer was convicted of stealing AI-related trade secrets from the tech giant for Chinese companies, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of California. Linwei Ding, also known as Leon Ding, was found guilty of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of thefts of trade secrets, after stealing more than 2,000 pages of confidential information from Google.

Subscribe

The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.