Justice Department Charges eBay with Cyberstalking, Harassment

The Justice Department charged eBay with stalking, witness tampering and obstruction of justice in a rare criminal case against a well-known Silicon Valley company. The charges, which will be dropped under a deferred prosecution agreement if eBay maintains a good record for the next three years, stem from actions taken by the company in 2019 to undermine and silence the writers of an e-commerce newsletter that was mildly critical of some of its behavior.

Canada Limits Exports of Sensitive Tech to China, Iran, Russia

Canada unveiled new rules aimed at preventing sensitive technological research developed in the country from being transferred to China, Iran or Russia. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government produced a list of dozens of foreign institutes, schools and laboratories that it says are linked to entities that might pose a risk to Canada’s national security.

Australia Creates Advisory Board on Risks of Artificial Intelligence

Australia will set up an advisory body to mitigate against the risks of artificial intelligence, the government said, becoming the latest country to increase its oversight of the technology. The government also said it planned to work with industry bodies to introduce a range of guidelines, including encouraging technology companies to label and watermark content generated by AI.

Supreme Court Rejects Apple's Appeal of Order on App Store Rules

The Supreme Court allowed a court order to take effect that could loosen Apple’s grip on its lucrative iPhone app store, potentially siphoning billions of dollars away from one of the world’s most profitable companies. The justices rejected Apple’s appeal of lower-court rulings that found some of Apple’s app store rules for apps purchased on more than 1 billion iPhones constitute unfair competition under California law.

OpenAI Says New York Times 'Intentionally Manipulated' Prompts in Lawsuit

OpenAI is firing back at The New York Times after the company was sued for copyright infringement over the use of the publisher’s articles to train its artificial intelligence chatbot. In a blog post, the Sam Altman-led firm said that the Times is “not telling the full story” and claimed it “intentionally manipulated” prompts to make it appears as if ChatGPT generates near word-for-word excerpts of articles.

Justice Department Nears Decision on Antitrust Suit Against Apple

The Justice Department is in the late stages of an investigation into Apple and could file a sweeping antitrust case taking aim at the company’s strategies to protect the dominance of the iPhone as soon as the first half of this year, said three people with knowledge of the matter. The agency is focused on how Apple has used its control over its hardware and software to make it more difficult for consumers to ditch the company’s devices, as well as for rivals to compete, said the people, who spoke anonymously because the investigation was active.

Nonfiction Authors Sue OpenAI, Microsoft for Copyright Infringement

OpenAI and its financial backer Microsoft were sued in Manhattan federal court by a pair of nonfiction authors who say the companies misused their work to train the artificial-intelligence models behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT and other AI-based services. Writers Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage told the court in a proposed class action that the companies infringed their copyrights by including several of their books as part of the data used to train OpenAI's GPT large language model.

Cyberattack Prevents Prominent Museums from Displaying Collections Online

Several prominent museums have been unable to display their collections online since a cyberattack hit a prominent technological service provider that helps hundreds of cultural organizations show their works digitally and manage internal documents. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas were among the institutions confirming that their systems have experienced outages in recent days.

Scammers Increase 'Cyber Kidnappings' Targeting Exchange Students

A 17-year-old Chinese student who went missing in Utah has been found unharmed, police said, adding that he appeared to be the victim of an elaborate “cyber kidnapping” scheme, a “disturbing criminal trend” in which scammers put people under duress and convince their families that they are being held for ransom. Kai Zhuang, who was living in Riverdale, was discovered “alive but very cold and scared” inside a tent in remote mountains near Brigham City, Riverdale Police Chief Casey Warren said in a statement.

State Legislators Plan New Effort to Adopt British-Style Child Safety Laws

A group of state legislators and children’s safety advocates are planning a renewed campaign to import British digital safeguards for kids into the United States as they look to ward off legal challenges from the tech industry. Legislators and advocates are forging ahead, reviving efforts to get the U.K.-style protections into law while attempting to thwart industry criticism that the approach would expand data collection and impose ambiguous restrictions on businesses, according to interviews with key negotiators and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Netherlands Limits ASML's Chip Exports to China After U.S. Restrictions

The Netherlands has blocked chip-equipment manufacturer ASML’s exports to China of some lithography systems, which are essential to making advanced microprocessors, in a partial license revocation following U.S. export restrictions. The Netherlands-based company said Monday that the Dutch government recently partially revoked an export license for shipping the NXT:2050i and NXT:2100i lithography systems to China in 2023.

Chief Justice Report Acknowledges Risks, Rewards of AI in Court

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. devoted his annual year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary, issued, to the positive role that artificial intelligence can play in the legal system — and the threats it poses. “One of A.I.’s prominent applications made headlines this year for a shortcoming known as ‘hallucination,’” he wrote, “which caused the lawyers using the application to submit briefs with citations to nonexistent cases. (Always a bad idea.)”

Pornhub Starts Restricting Access in States with New Age-Verification Laws

Pornhub has restricted access in two more states in protest of continued nationwide state-level efforts to regulate online access to porn. 404Media reported that residents in both North Carolina and Montana visiting Pornhub and other Aylo-owned sites like Redtube or Brazzers are now greeted by a video of performer Cherie DeVille, and a handful of paragraphs, telling them their states are now blocked.

Google to Settle Lawsuit Over Tracking Users with Private Browsing

Alphabet's Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of millions of people who thought they were doing their browsing privately. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, put a scheduled Feb. 5, 2024 trial in the proposed class action on hold after lawyers for Google and for consumers said they had reached a preliminary settlement.

X Fails to Block California Law Requiring Disclosure of Moderation Policies

Elon Musk's X failed to block a California state law that requires social media companies to publicly disclose how they moderate certain content on their platforms. X, formerly known as Twitter, in September sued California to undo the content moderation law, saying the law violated its free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment and California's state constitution.

Ex-Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen Cited AI-Generated Fake Court Cases

Michael D. Cohen, the onetime fixer for former President Donald J. Trump, mistakenly gave his lawyer bogus legal citations concocted by the artificial intelligence program Google Bard, he said in court papers. The fictitious citations were used by the lawyer in a motion submitted to a federal judge, Jesse M. Furman. Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and served time in prison, had asked the judge for an early end to the court’s supervision of his case now that he is out of prison and has complied with the conditions of his release.

New York Times Sues Creator of ChatGPT, Microsoft for Copyright Infringement

The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies. The Times is the first major American media organization to sue the companies, the creators of ChatGPT and other popular A.I. platforms, over copyright issues associated with its written works.

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