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☆ FTC chair Lina Khan says she's on alert for abusive A.I. use
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

"Although these tools are novel, they are not exempt from existing rules, and the F.T.C. In the op-ed, Khan detailed several ways AI might be used to harm consumers or the market that she believes federal enforcers should be looking for. One possible effect enforcers should look out for, according to Khan, is the impact of only a few firms controlling the raw materials needed to deploy AI tools. Khan also warned that AI tools used to set prices "can facilitate collusive behavior that unfairly inflates prices — as well as forms of precisely targeted price discrimination." Khan also warned that generative AI "risks turbocharging fraud" by creating authentic-sounding messages.

☆ Walmart dictates battery prices at competing retailers by pressuring Energizer, a trio of new lawsuits allege
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Ben Tobin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Energizer was "under pressure from Walmart" to ensure that nobody sold batteries for a lower price, three lawsuits say. The lawsuits allege that Energizer inflated wholesale battery prices for Walmart competitors. The lawsuits allege that in exchange for Walmart giving Energizer "preferential treatment" at its stores, Energizer agreed to a scheme to "artificially inflate the wholesale prices it charged to Walmart's competitors for Energizer Battery Products to prevent them from undercutting Walmart's retail prices." They further allege that, as a result, prices for batteries from Energizer's chief rival, Duracell, also were artificially inflated. The group "policed Energizer's customers' retail prices and raised wholesale prices as necessary to force Energizer's customers to maintain retail prices that did not undercut Walmart's," per the lawsuits.

According to complaints filed on Friday, Energizer agreed "under pressure from Walmart" to inflate wholesale battery prices for other retailers starting around January 2018, and require those retailers not to undercut Walmart on price. Walmart rivals allegedly risked higher wholesale prices or being cut off by Energizer, the largest U.S. disposable battery maker, if they charged less at checkout than Walmart, the world's largest retailer. According to the plaintiffs, Energizer's share of the U.S. disposable battery market has risen to more than 50% from 40% in 2018. The cases in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, are: Copeland et al v Energizer Holdings Inc et al, No. 23-02091, and Schuman et al v Energizer Holdings Inc et al, No.

☆ Jane Roberts, who is married to Chief Justice John Roberts, made $10.3 million in commissions from elite law firms, whistleblower documents show
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Mattathias Schwartz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +20 min

Jane Roberts was paid more than $10 million by a host of elite law firms, a whistleblower alleges. At least one of those firms argued a case before Chief Justice Roberts after paying his wife hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I realized that even the law firms who were Jane's clients had nowhere to go. Mark Jungers, another one of Jane Roberts' former colleagues, said that Jane was smart, talented, and good at her job. But whether that committee has the authority to discipline Thomas or any other Supreme Court Justice remains a matter of murky constitutional interpretation, to be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court itself.

☆ Elon Musk appeared to quietly change the way customers pay for Twitter Blue in Europe after being accused of breaking rules about how its prices were displayed
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A European Union consumer-protection watchdog told Insider last month that Twitter Blue was breaching price rules. Elon Musk appears to have quietly changed the way that Europeans can pay for Twitter Blue after being accused of breaking rules about displaying prices. A side-by-side comparison of the Twitter Blue checkout screens in the UK. Insider tested the Twitter Blue subscription process in the UK and, through a VPN, in Belgium, Denmark and Germany. According to web traffic data seen by Bloomberg, about 400,000 people have signed up for Twitter Blue – fewer than 1% of Twitter's 500 million monthly users.

The justices turned away five appeals by the oil companies of lower court decisions that determined that the lawsuits belonged in state court, a venue often seen as more favorable to plaintiffs than federal court. A separate appeal filed by the oil companies challenging lower court decisions in cases out of New Jersey and Delaware is still pending before the Supreme Court. Theodore Boutrous, an attorney for Chevron, expressed confidence that the cases will be dismissed in state court. That decision prompted other federal appeals courts to reconsider whether they should send similar lawsuits by state and local governments back to state courts. Four other appeals courts reached similar conclusions in the lawsuits by Rhode Island and jurisdictions in California, Colorado, Hawaii and Maryland.

☆ Many States Are Trying to Restrict Gender Treatments for Adults, Too
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Azeen Ghorayshi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Missouri this month became the first state in the country to severely restrict gender treatments for people of all ages, following a series of quieter moves across the country that have been chipping away at transgender adults’ access to medical care. Last year, Florida joined six other states in banning Medicaid from covering some form of gender care for transgender people of all ages. These bans affect an estimated 38,000 beneficiaries of the public insurance program, according to the Williams Institute, a research center at U.C.L.A.’s law school. And in at least five states, Republican legislators have proposed bills that would abolish gender care for minors as well as young adults. The rule also said that patients should not receive gender treatments until any mental health issues are “resolved.”

[1/2] The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, U.S., April 6, 2023. Two laws, the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Securities Exchange Act, funnel judicial review of adverse agency orders to federal appeals courts only after those orders become final. The Supreme Court's conservative justices have signaled wariness toward expansive federal regulatory power and the previously recognized duty of judges, under Supreme Court precedent, to give deference to that authority. Federal agencies have had their powers curtailed in recent Supreme Court rulings. Axon sued the FTC in 2020 in federal court in Arizona following an investigation by the agency into its 2018 acquisition of Vievu, a rival body-camera provider.

☆ SEC Targets Bittrex, Fallen Giant of U.S. Crypto Exchanges
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Dave Michaels | Mengqi Sun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—Bittrex Inc. once ranked as the country’s biggest platform for trading digital assets. Its rocky history at home is coming to an end with a regulatory threat and a decision to leave the U.S. for good. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement staff told Bittrex in March it would recommend that the agency sue the company over alleged violations of investor-protection laws, according to David Maria , the company’s general counsel.

☆ Memphis-area commissioners vote to reinstate Justin Pearson to the Tennessee House after he was expelled by Republicans over a gun control protest
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Shelby County Commission voted to reinstate Justin Pearson back to his seat in the Tennessee House. Pearson was removed from the body alongside newly-reinstated state Rep. Justin Jones over a gun reform protest. On Wednesday, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously former state Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis back to the seat that he last occupied just last Thursday. Pearson, along with state Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville, had been expelled from the legislature for what Republicans said was a breach in decorum in leading an unauthorized gun control push on the House floor. Tennessee Republicans have denied that Pearson and Johnson were removed from the body because of race.

☆ Washington Commanders to pay $625,000 to settle D.C. AG's claims of mishandling fan ticket deposits
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Natasha Piñon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

A detailed view of the new Washington Commanders uniforms following the announcement of the Washington Football Team's name change to the Washington Commanders at FedExField on February 02, 2022 in Landover, Maryland. The NFL's Washington Commanders will pay $625,000 to settle allegations brought by the Washington, D.C., attorney general that the organization failed to return fans' ticket deposits, the AG's office announced Monday. Former D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine sued the Commanders in November, alleging the team cheated residents out of their security deposits collected from season ticket holders and used the money for its own purposes. Racine alleged the Commanders sold premium seating tickets to D.C. fans since 1996, which sometimes required a security deposit. The Commanders have been hit with several claims of misconduct from inside the team's front office in recent years.

☆ TikTok banned from school-owned devices on all Florida state universities
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Chris Boyette | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

“Data privacy, particularly concerning student data and faculty research, is a critical priority for the State University System of Florida,” the Board of Governors said in a statement to CNN. Bans and regulations of Tik Tok in particular, and of social media sites in general, have been mounting. Utah also regulating useLate last month, the governor of Utah signed a bill which requires teens to get parental approval to use social media. Earlier this week, the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office, which regulates data, fined Tik Tok for a number of breaches of data protection law. CNN has reached out to each for comment.

☆ Portuguese NGO sues TikTok, says platform 'profits from children'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The lawsuit came a day after Britain's data watchdog said it had fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds ($15.81 million) for breaching data protection law, including by using the personal data of children without parental consent. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told Portuguese newspaper Publico in a statement that protecting its users and their data was of "utmost importance". Ius Omnibus claims TikTok ends up collecting and processing children's personal data in breach of Portugal's constitution, the European Union's general data protection regulation and the unfair commercial practices law. Despite TikTok's age limit, it "does not implement mechanisms to prevent registration" by users aged below 13, the group said. In a separate lawsuit, it claims users older than 13 are also victims of "misleading business practices" and that certain personal data is used without their full consent.

☆ TikTok Fined $15.8 Million by U.K. Regulator for Misuse of Children’s Data
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Gareth Vipers | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

U.K. authorities have fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds, equivalent to $15.8 million, for breaching the country’s data-protection laws, including the misuse of children’s information. The social-media platform, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., failed to get consent from the parents of children on its platform and didn’t do enough to remove underage users, the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office said Tuesday.

☆ TikTok fined $16 million in UK for misusing kids' data as scrutiny of Chinese-owned app intensifies
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

TikTok has been fined £12.7 ($15.9) million by U.K. privacy regulators for failing to protect children's data, in a fresh blow to the Chinese-owned app as it faces heightened scrutiny from regulators. The U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office said in a statement Tuesday it was fining TikTok for "a number of breaches of data protection law, including failing to use children's personal data lawfully." The ICO had previously proposed fining TikTok £25 million for the privacy violation in question. It comes amid calls for the app to be banned in the U.S. over national security concerns, and after administrations in the U.S., U.K. and several other countries prohibited the app from government-issued devices.

☆ UK watchdog fines TikTok $16 mln for 'misusing children's data'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, April 4 (Reuters) - Britain's data watchdog said on Tuesday it had fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds ($15.9 million) for breaching data protection law including by using the personal data of children aged under 13 without parental consent. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) estimated that TikTok allowed as many as 1.4 million UK children under 13 to use its platform in 2020, even though it sets 13 as the minimum age to create an account. TikTok did not abide by those laws," UK Information Commissioner John Edwards said. Children's data may have been used to track and profile them, potentially presenting them with harmful or inappropriate content, he added. ($1 = 0.7996 pounds)Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and Muvija M, Editing by Kylie MacLellanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Text-to-image tools like OpenAI's DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DreamUp can render images in various styles in seconds with a few words of direction. Now those purchasers can use the artist's work without compensating the artist at all," the class-action court filing against Stable Diffusion states. Stable Diffusion did not provide a comment by press time. Companies are selling AI-generated prints and Stable Diffusion can learn to copy an artist's style within hours. Given how new generative AI is, it's not surprising the legal system has yet to catch up.

Multiple experts identified the presence of malware on the Pinduoduo app that exploited vulnerabilities in Android operating systems. Evidence of sophisticated malware in the Pinduoduo app comes amid intense scrutiny of Chinese-developed apps like TikTok over concerns about data security. Pinduoduo has previously rejected “the speculation and accusation that Pinduoduo app is malicious.”CNN has contacted PDD multiple times over email and phone for comment, but has not received a response. Google Play is not available in China, and Android users in the country download their apps from local stores. Engineers also found their access to big data, data sheets and the log system revoked, the source said.

☆ Siemens investigating report employee worked for Russian hacking firm
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ZURICH, March 31 (Reuters) - Siemens (SIEGn.DE) has launched an investigation after Der Spiegel reported a former programmer from Russian IT company NTC Vulkan - which has reported links to Russian security services - worked for the German engineering and tech company. Der Spiegel reported on Friday that more than 90 former staff from NTC Vulkan worked for a several other European companies. The magazine said NTC Vulkan maintains close ties to all three major Russian intelligence services: FSB, GRU and SWR. Its so-called "Vulkan Files" said the company builds cyber programmes for the security services aimed at attacking critical infrastructure facilities. NTC Vulkan did not respond to requests for comment.

☆ ChatGPT banned by regulator in Italy, which says there's no legal basis for using personal data to train the chatbot following data breach
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Italy's data protection regulator announced a ban on ChatGPT, and investigation into OpenAI. It cited a March 20 data breach, and no "legal basis" for using people's data to train the chatbot. Italy's national data protection agency (DPA) said it would block access to ChatGPT immediately, and is starting an investigation into its creator, OpenAI. It added that the restriction was temporary, until the company can abide by the European Union's data protection laws, known as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Italian authority also cited a data breach on March 20, where a bug allowed some ChatGPT users to see the titles of other users' conversations.

☆ The FTC should investigate OpenAI and block GPT over 'deceptive' behavior, AI think tank claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Washington CNN —An AI policy think tank wants the US government to investigate OpenAI and its wildly popular GPT artificial intelligence product, claiming that algorithmic bias, privacy concerns and the technology’s tendency to produce sometimes inaccurate results may violate federal consumer protection law. “We believe that the FTC should look closely at OpenAI and GPT-4,” said Marc Rotenberg, CAIDP’s president and a longtime consumer protection advocate on technology issues. Microsoft and Google have both begun to integrate that same type of AI into their search products, with Microsoft’s Bing running on the GPT technology itself. In industry parlance, these types of mistakes are known as “AI hallucinations” — and they should be considered legally enforceable violations, CAIDP argued in its complaint. The complaint acknowledges that OpenAI has been upfront about many of the limitations of its algorithms.

☆ German coalition government ends dispute after marathon negotiations
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] A general view as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz holds a government statement during a plenary session of the lower house of parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, March 16, 2023. REUTERS/Christian MangBERLIN, March 28 (Reuters) - Germany's ruling coalition government on Tuesday presented the results of 30-hour negotiations aimed at resolving a spat that has threatened to delay major policy initiatives in Europe's top economy. Scholz, whom critics have accused of not providing sufficient leadership, played down the differences among the parties by suggesting the coalition reached "some very good agreements" but did not give details. Earlier this month Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the FDP delayed his presentation of the draft budget due to coalition rifts. Notably, the FDP wants to rein in spending while the Greens want to invest more in the transition to a carbon neutral economy.

☆ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rejected banning TikTok in her first TikTok video, saying it 'just doesn't feel right to me'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed calls to ban TikTok in her debut on the app. The New York Democrat said the bipartisan push to ban TikTok in the US "doesn't feel right to me." AOC said America needed stronger data and privacy protection laws rather than a TikTok ban. The New York Democrat started her video by saying: "This is not only my first TikTok, but it is a TikTok about TikTok. She pointed out that the US doesn't have "significant data or privacy protection laws," before mentioning the European Union's data privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation.

☆ Crypto Faces Legal Reckoning as SEC Prepares Action Against Coinbase
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Paul Kiernan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The Securities and Exchange Commission and Coinbase Global Inc. appear headed for a legal showdown that stands to have outsize consequences for both sides. The SEC notified Coinbase that it plans to sue the firm for allegedly violating a range of investor-protection laws, the firm said this week. An eventual SEC lawsuit against the largest U.S. crypto exchange could help determine the future shape of the business of exchanging dollars for digital tokens such as bitcoin, ether or polkadot. It would also be the SEC’s most significant move yet to rein in an industry that Chair Gary Gensler has described as rife with noncompliance—and one that would leave the agency with a black eye should it fail in court.

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