Justice Department Limits Prosecutions Against Cryptocurrency Firms

The Justice Department is scaling back prosecutors’ ability to bring criminal charges against cryptocurrency firms, in a move that could disrupt several ongoing cases and investigations. The department will no longer bring charges against exchanges, dealers, mixing services and wallet providers “for the acts of their end users,” according to a memorandum issued by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Trump Extends Deadline for TikTok Deal by Another 75 Days

President Trump granted TikTok another reprieve by announcing that he would extend the deadline for when the popular app had to make a deal to be separated from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban in the United States. TikTok, which had been facing a deadline for a deal, now has another 75 days to find a new owner to comply with a federal law that requires it to change its structure to resolve national security concerns.

British Court Rules Against Government in Apple Access Case

A court has blocked a British government attempt to keep secret a legal case over its demand to access Apple Inc. user data in a victory for privacy advocates. The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles cases related to government surveillance, said the authorities’ efforts were a “fundamental interference with the principle of open justice” in a ruling.

Man Uses Avatar to Make Legal Arguments in New York Appeals Court

It took only seconds for the judges on a New York appeals court to realize that the man addressing them from a video screen — a person about to present an argument in a lawsuit — not only had no law degree, but didn’t exist at all. The latest bizarre chapter in the awkward arrival of artificial intelligence in the legal world unfolded March 26 under the stained-glass dome of New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department, where a panel of judges was set to hear from Jerome Dewald, a plaintiff in an employment dispute.

Court Denies Injunction Against Using Song Lyrics to Train AI Models

Anthropic scored a win after a U.S. court denied an injunction that Universal Music Group and other record labels had sought to prevent the artificial-intelligence company from using copyrighted lyrics to train its AI models. Concord, ABKCO Music & Records, Universal Music and several subsidiaries sued Anthropic in October 2023, saying the company was harming them by using copyrighted material to train its AI chatbot, Claude.

Pentagon Says Russian Hackers Targeting Signal Messaging App

Several days after top national security officials accidentally included a reporter in a Signal chat about bombing Houthi sites in Yemen, a Pentagon-wide advisory warned against using the messaging app, even for unclassified information. "A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal Messenger Application," begins the department-wide email, dated March 18 and obtained by NPR.

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NHS Vendor to Pay $3.8 Million Fine in U.K. Ransomware Attack

NHS vendor Advanced will pay just over £3 million ($3.8 million) in fines for not implementing basic security measures before it suffered a ransomware attack in 2022, the U.K.’s data protection regulator has confirmed. The ICO said that Advanced “broke data protection law” by not fully rolling out multi-factor authentication prior to its breach, which allowed hackers to break in with stolen credentials and steal the personal information of tens of thousands of people across the United Kingdom.

Britain Fines OnlyFans $1.4 Million for Failures Over Age Checks

Britain's media and telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, fined OnlyFans, an adults-only website and social media platform, 1.05 million pounds ($1.4 million) over failures to correctly disclose information related to measures to check age. OnlyFans' operator, Fenix International Limited, had failed to provide accurate information over how it was implementing age checks and how effective OnlyFans' third-party facial estimation technology was, the watchdog said.

Judge Allows Media Organizations' Copyright Suit Against OpenAI to Proceed

A federal judge has ruled that The New York Times and other newspapers can proceed with a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft seeking to end the practice of using their stories to train artificial intelligence chatbots. U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein of New York dismissed some of the claims made by media organizations but allowed the bulk of the case to continue, possibly to a jury trial.

X Sues Indian Government for Allegedly Illegally Blocking Content

X, the social media company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, sued the Indian government, accusing it of illegally blocking content on the platform. The lawsuit alleges that the Indian government created a “censorship portal” last year, enabling government agencies, state authorities and tens of thousands of local police officers to issue takedown orders en masse, violating India’s constitution and the Information Technology Act.

SEC's Crypto Task Force Studies Applicability of Securities Laws

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's crypto task force held its first public meeting with experts, focusing on how securities laws might apply to digital assets as the Trump administration looks to overhaul cryptocurrency regulations. Among the participants of the roundtable were John Reed Stark, former chief of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement, Miles Jennings, the general counsel for Andreessen Horowitz's crypto arm, a16z, and former SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes.

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.

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