German Court Rules Against Apple in Antitrust Case

Apple lost its challenge at Germany's top civil court against its classification as a significant market power, a label which gives antitrust regulators more scope and flexibility to scrutinize its business practices. Judges at the Federal Court of Justice backed the German cartel office's 2023 designation of Apple as a “company of paramount cross-market significance for competition.”

British Surveillance Court Holds Hearing on Apple's 'Back Door'

A British surveillance court held a day-long closed-door hearing on Apple’s bid to block an order that would make it build spying capability into its most secure system for storing customers’ electronic content. Judges on Britain’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal heard from lawyers for Apple and for the government Home Office, without admitting or hearing from those representing digital rights groups and a coalition of media companies who had asked that the proceedings be opened to the public.

Federal Authorities Warn of Ransomware Attacks on Gmail, Outlook Users

Federal authorities are warning users of Gmail, Outlook, and other popular email services about dangerous ransomware linked to a group of developers who have breached hundreds of victims' data, including people in the medical, education, legal, insurance, tech, and manufacturing fields. The ransomware variant is called "Medusa," it was first identified in June 2021, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and FBI announced on March 12.

British, U.S. Officials Discuss Concerns About UK's Moves Against Encryption

British officials held private talks with their U.S. counterparts to resolve concerns that UK is trying to force Apple to build a backdoor into Americans' encrypted data, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The report about private discussions comes after Apple removed its most-advanced security encryption for cloud data, known as Advanced Data Protection, in Britain last month.

New York State Sues Allstate for Failing to Report Data Breach

New York state sued Allstate, accusing the insurer's National General unit of failing to report a data breach that exposed drivers' license numbers, and not developing reasonable safeguards to protect policyholders' private information. The lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James was filed in a state court in Manhattan, and seeks civil fines.

Trump's Justice Department Reiterates Demand to Break Up Google

In a sign that President Trump is following the Biden administration’s lead in reining in Google, the Justice Department reiterated its demand that a court break up the search giant. The request followed a landmark ruling last year by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that found Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search by paying web browsers and smartphone manufacturers to feature its search engine.

Musk Blames 'Massive Cyberattack' from Ukraine for Outages at X

Social media platform X suffered multiple service outages due to what its owner, billionaire Elon Musk, called a "massive cyberattack" that he said possibly originated from Ukraine. According to Downdetector, an online tracker of service outages, thousands of users reported outages Monday morning on the social media site bought by Musk in 2022 for $44 billion.

Cybersecurity Experts Targeting Russian, Chinese Hackers Ousted

Cybersecurity experts who worked to secure U.S. government computers from Russian and Chinese hackers have been ousted from their roles following pressure from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to two people familiar with the matter. More than 200 people, split roughly between contractors and employees, were let go beginning in February from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, amid sweeping staff reductions across the federal government, said the two people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share information with the media. Some of the workers had decades of experience, they said.

News Corp. Threatens Brave in Copyright Case, Prompting Suit

News Corp. has been sued by Google search engine rival Brave Software, which seeks to forestall a lawsuit by Rupert Murdoch's company for when readers are directed to copyrighted articles from the Wall Street Journal and New York Post. In a complaint filed in San Francisco federal court, Brave said News Corp. sent a cease-and-desist letter threatening litigation and demanding compensation for the alleged misappropriation of copyrighted articles by "scraping" its websites and indexing their content.

Google Criticizes Utah Legislation Requiring Verification of App Users' Ages

Google is pushing back against other major technology companies’ efforts to put the responsibility of age verification on the app stores, arguing the onus is on both the stores and developers to boost children’s safety. In a blog post, Google pushed back against what it called “concerning legislation” in Utah, which became the first state in the country to pass a bill requiring app stores to verify users’ ages.

Publisher to Keep Promoting Book by Ex-Facebook Worker Despite Order

Book publisher Macmillan said it would continue promoting a book written by a former Facebook employee who is now critical of the tech company, despite a statement by Meta that the book should not have been published and an order by an arbitrator for the author to retract claims she had made that were “disparaging, critical or otherwise detrimental.” The book, “Careless People” by Sarah Wynn-Williams, was published Tuesday, and it covers the six-plus years when Wynn-Williams worked at the social media giant.

Senators Seek Probe of Possible Pressure by Musk on X Advertisers

Five Democratic senators have asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Elon Musk is leveraging his influence in the Trump administration to bully advertisers into returning to X. The request, from Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Adam Schiff and Chris Van Hollen, follows a Wall Street Journal report last month about the social-media platform’s pressuring Interpublic Group to spend more on X.

Trump Administration Considers Vetting Social Media Accounts for Immigrants

The Trump administration may soon demand the social media accounts of people applying for green cards, U.S. citizenship, and asylum or refugee status. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — the federal agency that oversees legal migration, proposed the new policy in the Federal Register — calling this information “necessary for a rigorous vetting and screening” of all people applying for “immigration-related benefits.”

Melania Trump Pushes 'Take It Down Act' to Fight Online Sex Abuse

A bill aimed at criminalizing nonconsensual sexual imagery and forcing online platforms to take it down got a big boost from the White House. Reviving the “Be Best” online safety campaign she started in President Donald Trump’s first term, first lady Melania Trump held a Capitol Hill roundtable with lawmakers and victims of online sexual abuse to tout the Take It Down Act.

EU Lawmakers Combat U.S. Accusations About Tech Competition Rules

A group of European Union lawmakers wrote to top U.S. officials to push back on accusations that the bloc is using its new digital competition rules to treat American tech giants unfairly, saying that some U.S. companies are calling for its enforcement. EU lawmakers called for regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to work together to take on Big Tech, and said claims that EU tech laws undermine relations or act in effect as a tax on American companies are unfounded.

House Judiciary Committee Subpoenas Alphabet Over Content Moderation

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Alphabet, seeking its communications with former President Joe Biden's administration about content moderation policies. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a Republican, also asked the YouTube parent company for similar communications with companies and groups outside government, according to a copy of the subpoena seen by Reuters.

Secret Service Seizes Website of Russian Cryptocurrency Exchange

The U.S. Secret Service, working with a coalition of international law enforcement agencies, has taken down and seized the website of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange accused of being associated with darknet markets and ransomware hackers. The official Garantex website was replaced with a notice saying the exchange’s domain has been seized by the Secret Service following a warrant by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Trump Issues Executive Order to Create Strategic Reserve of Crypto

U.S. President Donald Trump on social media announced the names of five digital assets he expects to include in a new U.S. strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies, spiking the market value of each. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including bitcoin, ether, XRP, solana and cardano.

U.S. Regulators Dismantling Crackdown on Crypto Industry

Just over a month since President Trump’s inauguration, U.S. regulators have almost entirely dismantled a yearslong government crackdown on the crypto industry, a volatile sector rife with fraud, scams and theft. Regulators are following through on campaign promises that Mr. Trump made last year, as he courted donations from deep-pocketed crypto investors and marketed his own digital currency to the public.

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.