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.

Music Publishers Sue Anthropic for Misusing Songs to Train Claude

Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic was hit with a new lawsuit in California federal court by music publishers Universal Music Group Concord and ABKCO for allegedly misusing their songs to train Anthropic's chatbot Claude. The publishers said in the lawsuit that Anthropic pirated more than 700 of their works — including the lyrics and sheet music to the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses," Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" and Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" — and violated their rights in thousands more.

Meta Faces Trial Over Accusations of Exposing Children to Sex Exploitation

Meta Platforms is set to face trial in a lawsuit brought by the state of New Mexico accusing it of exposing children and teens to sexual exploitation on its platforms and profiting from it, the first case of its kind against the social media giant to reach a jury. The lawsuit, brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, alleges the company promoted illegal content and enabled the sexual exploitation of children on its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms.

Law Enforcement Probes Claims That Meta Can Access WhatsApp Messages

U.S. law enforcement has been investigating allegations by former Meta Platforms Inc. contractors that Meta personnel can access WhatsApp messages, despite the company’s statements that the chat service is private and encrypted, according to interviews and an agent’s report seen by Bloomberg News. The former contractors’ claims — that they and some Meta staff had “unfettered” access to WhatsApp messages — were being examined by special agents with the U.S. Department of Commerce, according to the law enforcement records, as well as a person familiar with the matter and one of the contractors.

ADL Criticizes Grok for 'Substantial Limitations in Bias Detection'

Grok, the large language model of Elon Musk’s social platform X, came in last place in a new ranking of AI chatbots’ ability to counter antisemitic and extremist content. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a report that it ran six popular chatbots through several rounds of questioning related to anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist and extremist biases.

Trial Begins in California Court Over Social Media Link to Addiction

A Los Angeles jury is poised to consider a central question in the debate over social media and teenage welfare: Are platforms such as Instagram and TikTok causing mental-health disorders? A personal-injury trial begins over a young woman’s claim that social-media platforms built products that fostered addiction in adolescents and caused her a host of mental-health problems.

French Bill Would Ban Children Under 15 from Using Social Media

France's National Assembly backed legislation to ban children under 15 years old from social media, amid growing concerns about online bullying and mental health risks. The bill proposes banning under-15s from social networks and "social networking functionalities" embedded within broader platforms, and reflects rising public angst over the impact of social media on minors.

YouTubers Add Snap as Defendant in Lawsuit Over AI Scraping

A group of YouTubers who are suing tech giants for scraping their videos without permission to train AI models has now added Snap to their list of defendants. The plaintiffs — internet content creators behind a trio of YouTube channels with roughly 6.2 million collective subscribers — allege that Snap has trained its AI systems on their video content for use in AI features like the app’s “Imagine Lens,” which allows users to edit images using text prompts.

TikTok Users Accuse Platform of Suppressing Videos from Minn. Shooting

Throngs of TikTok users say the social media platform suppressed or delayed videos about the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis man by federal immigration personnel, alleging that posts tied to the incident drew few views or were stalled amid broader technical issues on the site. Some said their posts about the deadly encounter stalled, while others complained their videos received a fraction of their normal viewership.

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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.