Regulation

Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu confirmed in an email to The Verge that the platform is “actively working” with its lawyers to ensure Bluesky’s compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act’s information disclosure rules, as Bloomberg reports.

Yesterday, the European Commission called out that Bluesky has no page listing “how many users they have in the EU and where they are legally established,” as required by the DSA.

Update November 26th: Updated with confirmation from Bluesky spokesperson Emily Liu.

Brazilian antitrust regulator Cade said it will fine Apple 250,000 real (about $43,000 USD) per day if it doesn’t meet the 20-day deadline, reports Reuters. The company must let developers link to outside payments and offer alternative in-app payment options to comply.

The ruling follows a 2022 complaint by Latin American e-commerce firm MercadoLibre, Reuters writes.

Hotel-related search results in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia are temporarily stripping out the map, property info and other clutter as shown in the gallery below. After the test, Google will look at how the change impacted “both the user experience and traffic to websites.”

It’s part of a series of changes meant to appease the EU’s DMA police and travel sites that have lost traffic as Google’s search results became worse, according to users, but more helpful, according to the advertising giant.

Update, November 26th: Added before and after images.

Filed in 2020, the FTC’s antitrust case against Meta accuses the social networking giant of stifling competition through its acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram. The trial will take place on April 14th — just days before a judge will hear the proposed remedies in Google’s antitrust case.

A US Chamber of Commerce email to members sent on Thursday indicated that the government is preparing to announce the new export restrictions “prior to the Thanksgiving break,” reports Reuters.

That’s not all, the outlet writes:

Another set of rules curbing shipments of high-bandwidth memory chips to China is expected to be unveiled next month as part of a broader artificial intelligence package, the email continues.

A federal judge said Friday that sanctioning Musk was unnecessary “because he already agreed to reimburse the SEC $2,923 to cover airfare for the trio of agency lawyers he stood up in Los Angeles in September,” Bloomberg writes.

The agency sought to sanction him after he ditched a testimony over his Twitter acquisition to watch a SpaceX launch.

Alphabet’s top lawyer says the agency’s proposed remedies, which include selling off Chrome, are part of “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership.”

If adopted, Kent Walker says the security and privacy “of millions of Americans” would be endangered, trade secrets would be sent to foreign companies, AI progress and innovation would be stymied, and the world as we know it would basically end.

Rumble, the YouTube rival popular with the right for its anti-”cancel culture” approach, is “very interested in acquiring Google Chrome,” CEO Chris Pavlovski says. He was responding to a Bloomberg report that the government is planning to ask a court to require Google to sell the browser as part of the antitrust case against its search business. Rumble notably brought its own antitrust suit against Google years ago.

In the waning months of Democratic control, the Federal Trade Commission is getting ready to probe Microsoft for alleged anticompetitive behavior, The Financial Times reports.

It plans to demand documents from Microsoft related to allegations that it makes it unduly difficult for customers to move from the Azure cloud by imposing sharp exit fees and other tactics. The FTC declined to comment.

In the coming days, Instagram and Facebook users within the bloc will be given the choice to receive “less personalized ads” that are full-screen and temporarily unskippable, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The offering, which Meta says is likely to negatively impact its business, follows pressure from European Union regulators who opposed users having to pay to avoid targeted ads.

The company has successfully reduced its record-setting EU fine of €1.06 billion to €376.36 million, at most. It was levied way back in 2009 after the x86 maker was found guilty of anticompetitive practices like paying PC makers to halt or delay the launch of products fitted with competing chips.

So, is the legal battle over? Nope! But Intel’s definitely not a dominant chipmaker anymore.