MD Passes Major Data Privacy Bills With the approval of a pair of bills last week, Maryland joined a handful of other states, including California, Connecticut, Texas and Utah, that have passed both comprehensive data privacy legislation and social media or online...
DOJ and State AGs Sue Apple over iPhone Practices The U.S. Department of Justice and the attorney’s general of 16 states filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of violating antitrust laws by engaging in practices designed to keep iPhone customers from switching...
U.S. House Passes Bill to Force Chinese Owner’s Divestiture of TikTok On a 334-60 vote, the U.S. House passed a bill ( HR 7521 ) that would require TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular video app or have it banned in the United States...
Elon Musk Sues OpenAI for Putting Profits Ahead of Humanity Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk filed a lawsuit in Superior Court in San Francisco accusing ChatGPT creator OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, of breach of contract for placing commercial interests ahead...
FL Legislature Passes Social Media Ban for Minors Florida lawmakers gave final approval to HB 1 , which would bar those under 16 from having a social media account and require social media platforms to confirm the age of new and existing users. The measure is...
Legal Challenges Not Stopping Youth Social Media Access Bills Legislation that would require social media companies to obtain parental consent before allowing access to minors has been introduced in 14 states, despite legal challenges from the tech industry to...
CA, NY Target Social Media Addictive Feeds, Youth Data Collection California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), Sen. Nancy Skinner (D), and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D) introduced a pair of bills last month aimed at protecting youth online. SB 976 would allow...
VA and VT Introduce ‘First Comprehensive AI Legislation’ of 2024 Legislation has been introduced in Virginia ( HB 747 ) and Vermont ( HB 710 ) that would set standards for developers of “high risk”—meaning designed to make consequential...
FL House Panel Advances Aggressive Children’s Online Safety Bill Florida’s House Judiciary Committee approved a bill ( HB 1 ) that would prevent those under 16 from having a social media account and require social media platforms to confirm the age...
SEC Approval of Bitcoin ETFs First Step of ‘Technological Revolution’ in Finance Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 applications to establish exchange-traded funds that track the current price of Bitcoin. The go-ahead for...
Epic Battles Apple and Google from Courthouse to Statehouse Last week a jury in San Francisco handed Epic Games, developer of the popular video game Fortnite, a rare victory over a Big Tech company, finding that Google violated federal and California antitrust...
NM AG Sues Meta for Exposing Minors to Sex Abuse New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez (D) filed a lawsuit alleging Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta gives sexual predators free access to minors. Torrez said other lawsuits filed against the company...
OpenAI Ousts CEO Sam Altman The board of directors of OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT, announced on the company’s blog last week that its CEO Sam Altman would be stepping down. The blog post said the company had conducted “a deliberative review process”...
IL Lawmakers Approve Bill Lifting Moratorium on Nuclear Power Plants: The Illinois General Assembly passed legislation ( HB 2437 ) that, as amended, will lift a nearly four-decades-old moratorium on new nuclear power plants, opening the door for cutting-edge small...
Biden Issues Executive Order on AI President Biden issued a sweeping executive order last that week aimed at managing the risks associated with artificial intelligence. Among other things the order requires AI developers to share safety test results with the...