U.S. Tech Companies Gain Influence Over Regulations in Brazil

America’s Big Tech companies, which have been aggressively courting President Trump, suddenly have new leverage in Brazil’s halls of power. Against a backdrop of a 50 percent tax on key Brazilian products, the firms are being welcomed to meetings with Brazilian officials and justices of the Supreme Court, as new regulation is being shaped on everything from online speech to artificial intelligence, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.

Justice Department Seizes $1M in Bitcoin from Russian Ransomware Gang

The U.S. Department of Justice announced it has seized the servers and $1 million in bitcoin from the prolific Russian ransomware gang behind the BlackSuit and Royal malware. According to the press release, a coalition of global law enforcement agencies, including from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Ireland, France, U.K., and others, seized four servers and nine domains on July 24.

Australian Court Rules Against Apple, Google in App Store Case

In a landmark decision, the federal court in Australia has ruled against tech giants Apple and Google in a major win for consumers, finding that the companies engaged in anti-competitive conduct. Judge Jonathan Beach found that both companies had broken the law by misusing their market power in the way they run their app stores which sell everything from smartphone apps to computer games.

Musk Threatens to Sue Apple Over AppStore Rankings for AI Companies

Billionaire Elon Musk said his artificial intelligence startup xAI would take legal action against Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of breaching antitrust regulations in managing the App Store rankings. "Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation. xAI will take immediate legal action," Musk said in a post on his social media platform X.

Some U.S. Lawmakers Oppose Britain's Age-Verification Law

A growing number of U.S. politicians are condemning a new British law that requires some websites and apps — including some based in the United States — to check the ages of users across the pond. A bipartisan group of members of Congress visited London recently to meet counterparts and air their concerns about the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, which went into effect July 25.

Wikipedia Loses Legal Challenge to Britain's Online Safety Act

The operator of Wikipedia lost a legal challenge to parts of Britain's Online Safety Act, which sets tough new requirements for online platforms and has been criticised for potentially curtailing free speech. The Wikimedia Foundation took legal action at London's High Court over regulations made under the law, which it said could impose the most stringent category of duties on Wikipedia.

Hackers Attack Federal Judiciary's Electronic Case Filing System

The electronic case filing system used by the federal judiciary has been breached in a sweeping cyber intrusion that is believed to have exposed sensitive court data across multiple U.S. states, according to two people with knowledge of the incident. The hack, which has not been previously reported, is feared to have compromised the identities of confidential informants involved in criminal cases at multiple federal district courts, said the two people, both of whom were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the hack.

Chinese Nationals in California Charged with Illegally Shipping AI Chips

Two Chinese nationals in California were arrested and charged with illegally shipping tens of millions of dollars' worth of AI chips to China, including Nvidia H100s, the U.S. Justice Department said. Chuan Geng, 28, of Pasadena, and Shiwei Yang, 28, of El Monte, exported the advanced Nvidia chips and other technology to China from October 2022 through July 2025 without the required licenses from the U.S. Commerce Department, the Justice Department said, citing an affidavit filed with the complaint.

Google Says Hackers Breached Salesforce Database System

Google has confirmed that some customers’ information has been stolen in a recent breach of one of its databases. In a blog post, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group said one of its Salesforce database systems, used to store contact information and related notes for small and medium businesses, was breached by a hacking group popularly known as ShinyHunters, formally designated as UNC6040.

Meta Bans 6.8M WhatsApp Accounts for Links to Scam Operations

Meta said it banned more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts this year linked to scam operations, as the company fights a wave of criminal activity on the internet that has wrangled billions of dollars out of victims’ savings. Scam accounts were often linked to criminal centers across Southeast Asia, where they run multiple operations at one time, from fraudulent crypto investments to pyramid schemes.

Australia Faults YouTube, Apple for Ignoring Child Sex Abuse Material

Australia’s Internet watchdog has said the world’s biggest social media firms are still “turning a blind eye” to online child sex abuse material on their platforms, and said YouTube in particular had been unresponsive to its enquiries. In a report, the eSafety Commissioner said YouTube, along with Apple, failed to track the number of user reports it received of child sex abuse appearing on their platforms and also could not say how long it took them to respond to such reports.

Google Loses Appeal in App Store Antitrust Case with Epic Games

Alphabet’s Google failed to persuade a U.S. appeals panel to overturn a jury verdict and federal court order requiring the technology company to revamp its app store Play. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a unanimous ruling, rejected claims from Google that the trial judge made legal errors in the antitrust case that unfairly benefited "Fortnite" maker Epic Games, which filed the lawsuit in 2020.

Meta to Stop Accepting Political Advertisements in European Union

Meta said that it would end political advertisements on its platform in European Union countries, the latest turn in the battle over regulation of its activities. Beginning in October, the company will stop ads related to political, electoral or social issues, it said in a release, citing a forthcoming E.U. regulation around the transparency of political advertising.

Altman Warns Against Using ChatGPT for Confidential Communications

ChatGPT users may want to think twice before turning to their AI app for therapy or other kinds of emotional support. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the AI industry hasn’t yet figured out how to protect user privacy when it comes to these more sensitive conversations, because there’s no doctor-patient confidentiality when your doc is an AI.

Arizona Woman Gets 8 Years for Helping N. Koreans with Job Scheme

An Arizona woman was sentenced to more than eight years in prison after she pleaded guilty to helping North Korean tech workers secure remote jobs with hundreds of U.S. firms using false identities. Christina Marie Chapman, 50, of Litchfield Park, Ariz., helped North Korean workers gain IT positions at 309 U.S. businesses as part of a scheme that reaped in more than $17 million, mostly for Pyongyang, according to a Justice Department statement.

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.