Regulation

The FTC called Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass price hike “exactly the sort of consumer harm” it had predicted ahead of the company’s Activision-Blizzard buy.

Microsoft’s response (PDF) claims that with included multiplayer and the upcoming day-and-date release of Call of Duty, the offering isn’t degraded at all.

Earlier this month, the country’s data protection authority (ANPD) issued a temporary measure banning Meta from training its AI models on Brazilian personal data over privacy and transparency concerns.

Like it did following similar constraints with the EU, Meta has now decided to suspend its generative AI tools in the region while it works to find a resolution with ANPD, according to Reuters.

The EU’s General Court has ruled that TikTok parent company ByteDance meets the required user threshold to be a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act.

TikTok has claimed it wasn’t valuable enough, and failed to obtain interim measures to avoid having to comply with DMA rules while it appealed the designation. The decision can still be appealed to the European Court of Justice.

The agency wants more information about Amazon’s maneuver to hire most of the Adept team and license its technology. Adept said its plans to build “useful general intelligence and an enterprise agent product” would have required “significant attention on fundraising.” The informal inquiry might not lead to an investigation or enforcement, but enforcers are keeping close watch of tech giants and AI.

A group of international enforcers including the US’s Federal Trade Commission evaluated 642 websites and apps offering subscriptions. They found that almost 76% used at least one potential dark pattern — design tricks meant to steer consumers to a desired outcome — and nearly 67% used more than one possible dark pattern. The most common dark pattern they found were “sneaking practices,” where sites hide or delay information that could sway a consumer’s decision.

The European Commission says it’s made commitments offered by Apple in January legally binding, allowing third-party developers to use the NFC functionality on iOS devices without being tied to Apple Pay or Apple Wallet.

The acceptance officially settles a four-year EU investigation and spares Apple from facing fines of up to $40 billion. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said:

“It opens up competition in this crucial sector, by preventing Apple from excluding other mobile wallets from the iPhone’s ecosystem.”

The European Commission has designated XNXX as a “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act (DSA), potentially requiring the website to bolster its content moderation and age verification processes.

The designation follows that of other adult content platforms — Pornhub, Xvideos, and Stripchat — last year. XNXX has until “mid-November 2024” to comply by submitting a risk assessment report.

The board previously said the policy “disproportionately restricts free expression” because while the term is “sometimes used by extremists to praise or glorify people who have died while committing violent terrorist acts,” there are also alternate meanings.

In a test, Meta said, removing the term when “paired with otherwise violating content” captured “the most potentially harmful content without disproportionality impacting voice.”

Correction: Meta said it’s implementing the Board’s recommendations, not seeking further guidance.

Apple is bumping up the energy density of the battery in its next iPhones, letting them last longer between charges, claims supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Kuo notes that more density means more heat, so Apple is encasing them in stainless steel, which he says will also mean they’re easier to replace — something the EU now requires.

Recently, Apple unceremoniously dropped Apple Pay Later, which already felt like an odd, risky choice for the brand, not even a year after launching the small loans program.

Why? Regulation, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman:

In May, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced increased scrutiny of “buy now, pay later” services, saying providers would need to follow the same regulations as credit card companies ... The increased regulation wasn’t something Apple wanted to deal with, I’m told ...