Big Tech Companies Agree to 'Online Fraud Charter' with British Government

Eleven of the world's biggest tech companies, including Amazon.com, Alphabet's Google and Microsoft, will sign an agreement with the British government to step up their efforts to tackle online fraud, the interior ministry said. Under the "Online Fraud Charter," due to be signed at a meeting chaired by Interior Minister James Cleverly in London, the companies pledge to take further action to block and remove fraudulent content from their sites, the government said.

Canada, Google Reach Agreement on Paying News Publishers for Content

Canada’s government said it reached a deal with Google for the company to contribute $100 million Canadian dollars annually to the country’s news industry to comply with a new Canadian law requiring tech companies to pay publishers for their content. The agreement removes a threat by Google to block the ability to search for Canadian news on Google in Canada.

Google Sees 'Massive Increase' in Chinese Cyberattacks on Taiwan

China is waging a growing number of cyberattacks on neighboring Taiwan, according to cybersecurity experts at Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Google has observed a “massive increase” in Chinese cyberattacks on Taiwan in the last six months or so, said Kate Morgan, a senior engineering manager in Google’s threat analysis division, which monitors government-sponsored hacking campaigns.

Meta to Stop Political Ads One Week Before U.S. Presidential Election

The rules for political and social issue advertising on Facebook and Instagram during the 2024 presidential race will look a lot like past election cycles, parent company Meta Platforms Inc. told U.S. officials. The social media company will block new political ads one week before U.S. voters go to the polls next November, according to a post by Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg.

Hackers Who Targeted Okta Accessed Data from All Customer Support Users

Hackers who compromised Okta’s customer support system stole data from all of the cybersecurity firm’s customer support users, Okta said in a letter to clients obtained by CNBC, a far greater incursion than the company initially believed. The expanded scope opens those customers up to the risk of heightened attacks or phishing attempts, Okta warned.

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Australia's Competition Watchdog Pushing for New Laws for Big Tech

Australia's competition watchdog said new competition laws were required in response to the rapid expansion of digital platforms such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft in the country. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in its latest report for the Digital Platform Services Inquiry raised concerns that the expansion of these platforms has increased the risk of them engaging in harmful behavior such as invasive data collection and practices that lock in customers and limit their choices.

Stock Photo Services Offering AI-Generated Images About News Events

As rapid advances in AI image-generation tools make automated images ever harder to distinguish from real ones, experts say their proliferation on sites such as Adobe Stock and Shutterstock threatens to hasten their spread across blogs, marketing materials and other places across the web, including social media — blurring lines between fiction and reality. Adobe Stock, an online marketplace where photographers and artists can upload images for paying customers to download and publish elsewhere, last year became the first major stock image service to embrace AI-generated submissions.

U.S., Other Countries Unveil International Agreement for AI Security

The United States, Britain and more than a dozen other countries unveiled what a senior U.S. official described as the first detailed international agreement on how to keep artificial intelligence safe from rogue actors, pushing for companies to create AI systems that are "secure by design." In a 20-page document, the 18 countries agreed that companies designing and using AI need to develop and deploy it in a way that keeps customers and the wider public safe from misuse.

Complaint Accuses Instagram of Illegally Collecting Children's Information

Meta has received more than 1.1 million reports of users under the age of 13 on its Instagram platform since early 2019 yet it “disabled only a fraction” of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint against the company brought by the attorneys general of 33 states. Instead, the social media giant “routinely continued to collect” children’s personal information, like their locations and email addresses, without parental permission, in violation of a federal children’s privacy law, according to the court filing.

Australia Plans Legislation to Regulate Digital Payment Services

Australia's government said it would bring Apple Pay, Google Pay and other digital payment services under the same regulatory umbrella as credit cards and other payments as part of legislation set to be introduced to parliament. The legislation, first flagged last month, will broaden the legislation that empowers the Reserve Bank of Australia to regulate payments so that it applies to new and emerging technology.

Judge Rules Against Authors' Claims of Copyright Infringement in AI Case

A federal judge has dismissed most of Sarah Silverman‘s lawsuit against Meta over the unauthorized use of authors’ copyrighted books to train its generative artificial intelligence model, marking the second ruling from a court siding with AI firms on novel intellectual property questions presented in the legal battle. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria offered a full-throated denial of one of the authors’ core theories that Meta’s AI system is itself an infringing derivative work made possible only by information extracted from copyrighted material.

X Sues Media Matters Over Research Showing Ads Next to Antisemitic Content

X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, sued Media Matters in federal court after the advocacy organization published research showing that ads on X appeared next to antisemitic content. A post last week from Elon Musk that endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory, which he wrote a day before the Media Matters research was published, kicked off an advertiser exodus, with major brands like IBM, Apple, Warner Bros. Discovery and Sony pausing their spending on the platform.

Online Scam Tricks Boys Into Sharing Nude Photos, Demands Payment

An online nude-photo scam is ensnaring thousands of teen boys and causing emotional trauma. Scammers posing as teen girls befriend boys online, share nude photos of a girl and then ask for nude photos in return. Once the boy reciprocates, the schemer demands money be sent by a peer-to-peer payment app and threatens to share the boy’s photos with his social-media followers if he doesn’t pay.

Senate Panel Issues Subpoenas to CEOs of X, Discord, Snap for Child Safety Hearing

A Senate panel announced it subpoenaed the CEOs of Elon Musk’s X, Discord and Snap to testify at a hearing on children’s online safety next month after “repeated refusals” by the tech companies to cooperate with its investigation into the matter. In a rare show of force, the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are seeking to force X’s Linda Yaccarino, Discord’s Jason Citron and Snap’s Evan Spiegel to appear at the Dec. 6 session, which the panel said in a news release would “allow Committee members to press CEOs from some of the world’s largest social media companies on their failures to protect children online.”

European Commission Stops Advertising on X, Citing 'Spread of Disinformation'

The European Commission has decided to stop advertising on social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, over “widespread concerns relating to the spread of disinformation,” according to an internal note obtained by Politico's Brussels Playbook. In a note sent to all heads of service and directors general, the Commission’s Deputy Chief Spokesperson Dana Spinant said disinformation on X, especially in relation to the Israel-Hamas war, had led the institution to “recommend to temporarily suspend advertising on this platform until further notice to avoid risks of reputational damage to the Commission.”

TikTok to Ban Content Promoting Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'

TikTok will prohibit content that promotes Osama bin Laden's 2002 letter detailing the former al Qaeda leader's justifications for attacks against Americans, the short-form video app said. Discussions of the 20-year-old letter have spread on the platform this week in the context of debate over the Israel-Hamas war, with some users in the West praising its contents.

Applied Materials Under Criminal Investigation for Evading Export Restrictions

Semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials is under U.S. criminal investigation for potentially evading export restrictions on China's top chipmaker SMIC, according to three people familiar with the matter. The largest U.S. semiconductor equipment maker is being probed by the Justice Department for sending equipment to SMIC via South Korea without export licenses, the sources said. Hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment is involved, one of the people said. Reuters is reporting details of the probe for the first time.

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.