AI systems that pose "unacceptable risk" or harm can now be banned in the European Union. Some of the unacceptable AI activities include social scoring, deceptive manipulation, exploiting personal vulnerabilities, predictive policing based on appearance, biometric-based profiling, real-time biometric surveillance, emotion inference in workplaces or schools, and unauthorized facial recognition database expansion. TechCrunch reports: Under the bloc's approach, there are four broad risk levels: (1) Minimal risk (e.g., email spam filters) will face no regulatory oversight; (2) limited risk, which includes customer service chatbots, will have a light-touch regulatory oversight; (3) high risk -- AI for healthcare recommendations is one example -- will face heavy regulatory oversight; and (4) unacceptable risk applications -- the focus of this month's compliance requirements -- will be prohibited entirely.

Companies that are found to be using any of the above AI applications in the EU will be subject to fines, regardless of where they are headquartered. They could be on the hook for up to ~$36 million, or 7% of their annual revenue from the prior fiscal year, whichever is greater. The fines won't kick in for some time, noted Rob Sumroy, head of technology at the British law firm Slaughter and May, in an interview with TechCrunch. "Organizations are expected to be fully compliant by February 2, but ... the next big deadline that companies need to be aware of is in August," Sumroy said. "By then, we'll know who the competent authorities are, and the fines and enforcement provisions will take effect."

Senator Josh Hawley has introduced a bill that would criminalize the import, export, and collaboration on AI technology with China. What this means is that "someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar fine, or both, should such a law pass," reports 404 Media. From the report: Hawley introduced the legislation, titled the Decoupling America's Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act, on Wednesday of last year. "Every dollar and gig of data that flows into Chinese AI are dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States," Senator Hawley said in a statement. "America cannot afford to empower our greatest adversary at the expense of our own strength. Ensuring American economic superiority means cutting China off from American ingenuity and halting the subsidization of CCP innovation."

Hawley's statement explicitly says that he introduced the legislation because of the release of DeepSeek, an advanced AI model that's competitive with its American counterparts, and which its developers claimed was made for a fraction of the cost and without access to as many and as advanced of chips, though these claims are unverified. Hawley's statement called DeepSeek "a data-harvesting, low-cost AI model that sparked international concern and sent American technology stocks plummeting." Hawley's statement says the goal of the bill is to "prohibit the import from or export to China of artificial intelligence technology, "prohibit American companies from conducting AI research in China or in cooperation with Chinese companies," and "Prohibit U.S. companies from investing money in Chinese AI development."

NetChoice has filed (PDF) its 10th lawsuit challenging state internet regulations, this time opposing Maryland's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act. The Verge's Lauren Feiner reports: NetChoice has become one of the fiercest -- and most successful -- opponents of age verification, moderation, and design code laws, all of which would put new obligations on tech platforms and change how users experience the internet. [...] NetChoice's latest suit opposes the Maryland Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a rule that echoes a California law of a similar name. In the California litigation, NetChoice notched a partial win in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the district court's decision to block a part of the law requiring platforms to file reports about their services' impact on kids. (It sent another part of the law back to the lower court for further review.)

A similar provision in Maryland's law is at the center of NetChoice's complaint. The group says that Maryland's reporting requirement lets regulators subjectively determine the "best interests of children," inviting "discriminatory enforcement." The reporting requirement on tech companies essentially mandates them "to disparage their services and opine on far-ranging and ill-defined harms that could purportedly arise from their services' 'design' and use of information," NetChoice alleges. NetChoice points out that both California and Maryland have passed separate online privacy laws, which NetChoice Litigation Center director Chris Marchese says shows that "lawmakers know how to write laws to protect online privacy when what they want to do is protect online privacy."

Supporters of the Maryland law say legislators learned from California's challenges and "optimized" their law to avoid questions about speech, according to Tech Policy Press. In a blog analyzing Maryland's approach, Future of Privacy Forum points out that the state made some significant changes from California's version -- such as avoiding an "express obligationâ to determine users' ages and defining the "best interests of children." The NetChoice challenge will test how well those changes can hold up to First Amendment scrutiny. NetChoice has consistently maintained that even well-intentioned attempts to protect kids online are likely to backfire. Though the Maryland law does not explicitly require the use of specific age verification tools, Marchese says it essentially leaves tech platforms with a no-win decision: collect more data on users to determine their ages and create varied user experiences or cater to the lowest common denominator and self-censor lawful content that might be considered inappropriate for its youngest users. And similar to its arguments in other cases, Marchese worries that collecting more data to identify users as minors could create a "honey pot" of kids' information, creating a different problem in attempting to solve another.

"A jury may never see the gun that authorities say was used to kill Blake Story last year," reports Cleveland.com.

"That's because Cleveland police used a facial recognition program — one that explicitly says its results are not admissible in court — to obtain a search warrant, according to court documents." The search turned up what police say is the murder weapon in the suspect's home. But a Cuyahoga County judge tossed that evidence after siding with defense attorneys who argued that the search warrant affidavit was misleading and relied on inadmissible evidence. If an appeals court upholds the judge's ruling to suppress the evidence, prosecutors acknowledge their case is likely lost...

The company that produced the facial recognition report, Clearview AI, has been used in hundreds of law enforcement investigations throughout Ohio and has faced lawsuits over privacy violations.

Not only does Cleveland lack a policy governing the use of artificial intelligence, Ohio lawmakers also have failed to set standards for how police use the tool to investigate crimes. "It's the wild, wild west in Ohio," said Gary Daniels, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union. The lack of state regulation of how law enforcement uses advanced technologies — no laws similarly govern the use of drones or license plate readers — means it is essentially up to agencies how they use the tools.
The affidavit for the search warrant was signed by a 28-year police force veteran, according to the article — but it didn't disclose the use of Clearview's technology.

Clearview's report acknowledged their results were not admissible in court — but then provided the suspect's name, arrest record, Social Security number, according to the article, and "noted he was the most likely match for the person in the convenience store."

Thanks to tlhIngan (Slashdot reader #30,335) for sharing the news.

A recent video from retro tech YouTuber Clint "LGR" Basinger takes a deep dive into the history of the SereneScreen Marine Aquarium, exploring how former Air Force pilot Jim Sachs transformed a lackluster Windows 95 screensaver into a 25-year digital phenomenon. PC Gamer reports: The story centers on Jim Sachs, a man with one of those "they don't make this type of guy anymore" life stories so common to '80s and '90s computing, one Sachs recounted to the website AmigaLove back in 2020. After a six-year career in the US Air Force flying C-141 Starlifters, Sachs taught himself programming and digital art and began creating games for Commodore 64 and Amiga computers. From his first game, Saucer Attack, to later efforts like Defender of the Crown or his large portfolio of promotional and commissioned pieces, Sach's pixel art remains gorgeous and impressive to this day, and he seems to be a bit of a legend among Commodore enthusiasts.

It's with this background in games and digital art that Sachs looked at Microsoft's simple aquarium-themed screensaver for Windows 95 and 98 and thought he could do better. "Microsoft had an aquarium that they gave away with Windows where it was just bitmaps of fish being dragged across the screen," Sachs told the Matt Chat podcast back in 2015. "And they had that for like, three or four years. And I thought, I've given them enough time, I'm taking them to market. I'm gonna do something which will just blow that away."

Using reference photographs of real aquariums -- Sachs thanked a specific pet shop that's still around in an early version of his website" -- Sachs created the 3D art by hand and programmed the screensaver in C++, releasing the initial version in July 2000. Even looking at it all these years later, the first iteration of the SereneScreen Marine Aquarium is pretty gorgeous, and it has the added charm of being such a distinctly Y2K, nostalgic throwback.

The standalone screensaver sold well, but then things came full circle with Microsoft licensing a version of the Marine Aquarium for the Windows XP Plus Pack and later standard releases of the OS. Since that time, the Marine Aquarium has continued to see new releases, and a section on the SereneScreen website keeps track of its various appearances in the background of movies and TV shows like Law and Order. Over on the SereneScreen website, you can purchase a real time, 3D-accelerated version of the Marine Aquarium for Mac, iOS, Android, and the original Windows. Echoing the Windows XP deal, Roku actually licensed this 3.0 version for its TVs, bringing it to a new generation of users.

A proposed class-action lawsuit accuses Amazon of secretly tracking consumers' movements through their cellphones via its Amazon Ads SDK embedded in third-party apps, allegedly collecting sensitive geolocation data without consent. The complaint, filed by a California resident in a San Francisco federal court, claims Amazon violated state laws on unauthorized computer access in the process. Reuters reports: This allegedly enabled Amazon to collect an enormous amount of timestamped geolocation data about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, revealing sensitive information such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations and health concerns. "Amazon has effectively fingerprinted consumers and has correlated a vast amount of personal information about them entirely without consumers' knowledge and consent," the complaint said.

The complaint was filed by Felix Kolotinsky of San Mateo, California, who said Amazon collected his personal information through the "Speedtest by Ookla" app on his phone. He said Amazon's conduct violated California's penal law and a state law against unauthorized computer access, and seeks unspecified damages for millions of Californians.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: US Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) today proposed a law that would let copyright owners obtain court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to foreign piracy websites. The bill would also force DNS providers to block sites. Lofgren said in a press release that she "work[ed] for over a year with the tech, film, and television industries" on "a proposal that has a remedy for copyright infringers located overseas that does not disrupt the free Internet except for the infringers." Lofgren said she plans to work with Republican leaders to enact the bill. [...]

Lofgren's bill (PDF) would impose site-blocking requirements on broadband providers with at least 100,000 subscribers and providers of public domain name resolution services with annual revenue of over $100 million. The bill has exemptions for VPN services and "similar services that encrypt and route user traffic through intermediary servers"; DNS providers that offer service "exclusively through encrypted DNS protocols"; and operators of premises that provide Internet access, like coffee shops, bookstores, airlines, and universities. Lofgren released a summary of the bill explaining how copyright owners can obtain blocking orders. "A copyright owner or exclusive licensee may file a petition in US District Court to obtain a preliminary order against a foreign website or online service engaging in copyright infringement," the summary said.

For non-live content, the petition must show that "transmission of a work through a foreign website likely infringes exclusive rights under Section 106 [of US law] and is causing irreparable harm." For live events, a petition must show that "an imminent or ongoing unauthorized transmission of a live event is likely to infringe, and will cause irreparable harm." The proposed law says that after a preliminary order is issued, copyright owners would be able to obtain orders directing service providers "to take reasonable and technically feasible measures to prevent users of the service provided by the service provider from accessing the foreign website or online service identified in the order." Judges would not be permitted to "prescribe any specific technical measures" for blocking and may not require any action that would prevent Internet users from using virtual private networks.Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge described the bill as a "censorious site-blocking" measure "that turns broadband providers into copyright police at Americans' expense."

"Rather than attacking the problem at its source -- bringing the people running overseas piracy websites to court -- Congress and its allies in the entertainment industry has decided to build out a sweeping infrastructure for censorship," Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Meredith Rose said. "Site-blocking orders force any service provider, from residential broadband providers to global DNS resolvers, to disrupt traffic from targeted websites accused of copyright infringement. More importantly, applying blocking orders to global DNS resolvers results in global blocks. This means that one court can cut off access to a website globally, based on one individual's filing and an expedited procedure. Blocking orders are incredibly powerful weapons, ripe for abuse, and we've seen the messy consequences of them being implemented in other countries."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Bolstered by Silicon Valley investment, scientists are making such rapid progress that lab-grown human eggs and sperm could be a reality within a decade, a meeting of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority board heard last week (PDF). In-vitro gametes (IVGs), eggs or sperm that are created in the lab from genetically reprogrammed skin or stem cells, are viewed as the holy grail of fertility research. The technology promises to remove age barriers to conception and could pave the way for same-sex couples to have biological children together. It also poses unprecedented medical and ethical risks, which the HFEA now believes need to be considered in a proposed overhaul of fertility laws.

Peter Thompson, chief executive of the HFEA, said: "In-vitro gametes have the potential to vastly increase the availability of human sperm and eggs for research and, if proved safe, effective, and publicly acceptable, to provide new fertility treatment options for men with low sperm counts and women with low ovarian reserve." The technology also heralds more radical possibilities including "solo parenting" and "multiplex parenting." Julia Chain, chair of HFEA, said: "It feels like we ought to have Steven Spielberg on this committee," in a brief moment of levity in the discussion of how technology should be regulated. Lab-grown eggs have already been used produce healthy babies in mice -- including ones with two biological fathers. The equivalent feat is yet to be achieved using human cells, but US startups such as Conception and Gameto claim to be closing in on this prize.

The HFEA meeting noted that estimated timeframes ranged from two to three years -- deemed to be optimistic -- to a decade, with several clinicians at the meeting sharing the view that IVGs appeared destined to become "a routine part of clinical practice." The clinical use of IVGs would be prohibited under current law and there would be significant hurdles to proving that IVGs are safe, given that any unintended genetic changes to the cells would be passed down to all future generations. The technology also opens up myriad ethical issues. Thompson said: "Research on IVGs is progressing quickly but it is not yet clear when they might be a viable option in treatment. IVGs raise important questions and that is why the HFEA has recommended that they should be subject to statutory regulation in time, and that biologically dangerous use of IVGs in treatment should never be permitted."

"This is the latest of a range of detailed recommendations on scientific developments that we are looking at to future-proof the HFE Act, but any decisions around UK modernizing fertility law are a matter for parliament."

Google has appealed a record $4.5 billion EU antitrust fine to the European Court of Justice, arguing that the European Commission's decision punished its innovation and imposed unfair penalties for agreements requiring pre-installation of its apps on Android devices. Reuters reports: Google's appeal to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union comes two years after a lower tribunal sided with the European Commission which said the company used its Android mobile operating system to quash rivals. The lower court trimmed the fine to 4.1 billion euros.

"Google does not contest or shy away from its responsibility under the law, but the Commission also has a responsibility when it runs investigations, when it seeks to reshape markets and second-guess pro-competitive business models, and when it imposes multi-billion-euro fines," Google lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid told the court. "In this case, the Commission failed to discharge its burden and its responsibility and, relying on multiple errors of law, punished Google for its superior merits, attractiveness and innovation," he said. The final ruling is expected in the coming months and cannot be appealed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hill: Two federal employees are suing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to block the agency from creating a new email distribution system -- an action that comes as the information will reportedly be directed to a former staffer to Elon Musk now at the agency. The suit (PDF), launched by two anonymous federal employees, ties together two events that have alarmed members of the federal workforce and prompted privacy concerns. That includes an unusual email from OPM last Thursday reviewed by The Hill said the agency was testing "a new capability" to reach all federal employees -- a departure from staffers typically being contacted directly by their agency's human resources department.

Also cited in the suit is an anonymous Reddit post Monday from someone purporting to be an OPM employee, saying a new server was installed at their office after a career employee refused to set up a direct line of communication to all federal employees. According to the post, instructions have been given to share responses to the email to OPM chief of staff Amanda Scales, a former employee at Musk's AI company. Federal agencies have separately been directed to send Scales a list of all employees still on their one-year probationary status, and therefore easier to remove from government. The suit says the actions violate the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires a Privacy Impact Assessment before pushing ahead with creation of databases that store personally identifiable information.

Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a non-profit law firm, noted that OPM has been hacked before and has a duty to protect employees' information. "Because they did that without any indications to the public of how this thing was being managed -- they can't do that for security reasons. They can't do that because they have not given anybody any reason to believe that this server is secure.that this server is storing this information in the proper format that would prevent it from being hacked," he said. McClanahan noted that the emails appear to be an effort to create a master list of federal government employees, as "System of Records Notices" are typically managed by each department. "I think part of the reason -- and this is just my own speculation -- that they're doing this is to try and create that database. And they're trying to sort of create it by smushing together all these other databases and telling everyone who receives the email to respond," he said.

In Friday's excerpt from Bill Gates' upcoming memoir, the Microsoft co-founder acknowledges that "It's impossible to overstate the unearned privilege I enjoyed. To be born in the rich U.S. is a big part of a winning birth-lottery ticket... Add to that my lucky timing..." The biggest part of my good fortune was being born to Bill and Mary Gates — parents who struggled with their complicated son but ultimately seemed to intuitively understand how to guide him. If I were growing up today, I probably would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum. During my childhood, the fact that some people's brains process information differently from others wasn't widely understood. (The term "neurodivergent" wouldn't be coined until the 1990s.) My parents had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues and could be rude and inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others.

What I do know is that my parents afforded me the precise blend of support and pressure I needed... Instead of allowing me to turn inward, they pushed me out into the world — to the baseball team, the Cub Scouts and other families' dinner tables. And they gave me constant exposure to adults, immersing me in the language and ideas of their friends and colleagues, which fed my curiosity about the world beyond school. Even with their influence, my social side would be slow to develop, as would my awareness of the impact I can have on other people. But that has come with age, with experience, with children, and I'm better for it. I wish it had come sooner, even if I wouldn't trade the brain I was given for anything...

I will never have my father's calm bearing, but he instilled in me a fundamental sense of confidence and capability. My mother's influence was more complex. Internalized by me, her expectations bloomed into an even stronger ambition to succeed, to stand out and to do something important. It was as if I needed to clear my mom's bar by such a wide margin that there would be nothing left to say on the matter. But, of course, there was always something more to be said. It was my mother who regularly reminded me that I was merely a steward of any wealth I gained. With wealth came the responsibility to give it away, she would tell me.

I regret that my mom didn't live long enough to see how fully I've tried to meet that expectation: she passed away in 1994, at age 64, from breast cancer. It would be my father in the years after my mom died who would help get our foundation started and serve as a co-chair for years, bringing the same compassion and decency that had served so well in his law career.
Proceeds from book sales will be donated to the nonprofit United Way Worldwide, in recognition of Mary's longtime work as a volunteer and board member with the organization.

This weekend Cory Doctorow delved into "the two factors that make services terrible: captive users, and no constraints." If your users can't leave, and if you face no consequences for making them miserable (not solely their departure to a competitor, but also fines, criminal charges, worker revolts, and guerrilla warfare with interoperators), then you have the means, motive and opportunity to turn your service into a giant pile of shit... Every economy is forever a-crawl with parasites and monsters like these, but they don't get to burrow into the system and colonize it until policymakers create rips they can pass through.
Doctorow argues that "more and more critics are coming to understand that lock-in is the root of the problem, and that anti-lock-in measures like interoperability can address it." Even more important than market discipline is government discipline, in the form of regulation. If Zuckerberg feared fines for privacy violations, or moderation failures, or illegal anticompetitive mergers, or fraudulent advertising systems that rip off publishers and advertisers, or other forms of fraud (like the "pivot to video"), he would treat his users better. But Facebook's rise to power took place during the second half of the neoliberal era, when the last shreds of regulatory muscle that survived the Reagan revolution were being devoured... But it's worse than that, because Zuckerberg and other tech monopolists figured out how to harness "IP" law to get the government to shut down third-party technology that might help users resist enshittification... [Doctorow says this is "why companies are so desperate to get you to use their apps rather than the open web"] IP law is why you can't make an alternative client that blocks algorithmic recommendations. IP law is why you can't leave Facebook for a new service and run a scraper that imports your waiting Facebook messages into a different inbox. IP law is why you can't scrape Facebook to catalog the paid political disinformation the company allows on the platform...
But then Doctorow argues that "Legacy social media is at a turning point," citing as "a credible threat" new systems built on open standards like Mastodon (built on Activitypub) and Bluesky (built on Atproto): I believe strongly in improving the Fediverse, and I believe in adding the long-overdue federation to Bluesky. That's because my goal isn't the success of the Fediverse — it's the defeat of enshtitification. My answer to "why spend money fixing Bluesky?" is "why leave 20 million people at risk of enshittification when we could not only make them safe, but also create the toolchain to allow many, many organizations to operate a whole federation of Bluesky servers?" If you care about a better internet — and not just the Fediverse — then you should share this goal, too... Mastodon has one feature that Bluesky sorely lacks — the federation that imposes antienshittificatory discipline on companies and offers an enshittification fire-exit for users if the discipline fails. It's long past time that someone copied that feature over to Bluesky.
Doctorow argues that federated and "federatable" social media "disciplines enshittifiers" by freeing social media's captive audiences.

"Any user can go to any server at any time and stay in touch with everyone else."

The state of Michigan will now require each public high school in the state to offer at least one computer science course to its students. "This bill aligns Michigan with a majority of the country," according to the state's announcement, which says the bill "advances technological literacy" and ensures their students "are well-equipped with the critical thinking skills necessary for success in the workforce."

Slashdot reader theodp writes: From the Michigan House Fiscal Agency Analysis: "Supporters of the bill say that increasing access to computer science courses for students in schools should be a priority of the state in order to ensure that students can compete for the types of jobs that have good pay and will be needed in the coming decades."

That analysis goes on to report that testifying in favor of the bill were tech-giant backed nonprofit Code.org (Microsoft is a $30 million Code.org donor), Amazon and AWS (Amazon is a $30+ million Code.org donor), the tech-supported Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), and the lobbying organization TechNet, whose members include Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and OpenAI).
It's not clear how many high schools in Michigan are already teaching CS courses, but this still raises a popular question for discussion. Should high schools be required to teach at least one CS course?

A plan to keep TikTok available in the U.S. "involves tapping software company Oracle and a group of outside investors," reports NPR, "to effectively take control of the app's global operations, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks..."

"[P]otential investors who are engaged in the talks include Microsoft." Under the deal now being negotiated by the White House, TikTok's China-based owner ByteDance would retain a minority stake in the company, but the app's algorithm, data collection and software updates will be overseen by Oracle, which already provides the foundation of TikTok's web infrastructure... "The goal is for Oracle to effectively monitor and provide oversight with what is going on with TikTok," said the person directly involved in the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the deliberations. "ByteDance wouldn't completely go away, but it would minimize Chinese ownership...." Officials from Oracle and the White House held a meeting on Friday about a potential deal, and another meeting has been scheduled for next week, according to the source involved in the discussions, who said Oracle is interested in a TikTok stake "in the tens of billions," but the rest of the deal is in flux...

Under a law passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, TikTok must execute what is known as "qualified divestiture" from ByteDance in order to stay in business in the U.S... A congressional staffer involved in talks about TikTok's future, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said binding legal agreements from the White House ensuring ByteDance cannot covertly manipulate the app will prove critical in winning lawmakers' approval. "A key part is showing there is no operational relationship with ByteDance, that they do not have control," the Congressional staffer said. "There needs to be no backdoors where China can potentially gain access...."

Chinese regulators, who have for years opposed the selling of TikTok, recently signaled that they would not stand in the way of a TikTok ownership change, saying acquisitions "should be independently decided by the enterprises and based on market principles." The statement, at first, does not seem to say much, but negotiators in the White House believe it indicates that Beijing is not planning to block a deal that gives American investors a majority-stake position in the company.
"Meanwhile, Apple and Google still have not returned TikTok to app stores..."

Epic Games is expanding its mobile app store to include nearly 20 third-party games on Android and EU iOS, launching a free games program, and temporarily covering Apple's Core Technology Fee for participating developers to counter platform restrictions. "Our aim here isn't just to launch a bunch of different stores in different places, but to build a single, cross-platform store in which, within the era of multi-platform games, if you buy a game or digital items in one place, you have the ability to own them everywhere," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney told reporters during a press briefing. The Verge reports: Under the program, Epic will offer new free games in the store each month before eventually switching to a weekly schedule. However, the games aren't actually in the store yet -- Epic said on Thursday that it "ran into a few bugs that we're working through now" and "we'll provide an update once the games are live and ready to play!"

To sweeten the deal for developers that participate in the free games program on iOS, Epic will help defray the cost of using third-party marketplaces. For one year, it will pay these developers' Core Technology Fee (CTF): a 50 euro cent fee levied on every install of an iOS app that uses third-party stores after it exceeds 1 million annual downloads. (Apple gives developers with less than 10 million euros in global revenue a three-year on-ramp.) [...] Epic writes in its blog post that covering the fee "is not financially viable for every third party app store or for Epic long term, but we'll do it while the European Commission investigates Apple's non-compliance with the law."

US President Donald Trump blasted European Union regulators for targeting Apple, Alphabet's Google and Meta, describing theircases against American companies as "a form of taxation." From a report: The EU has established a reputation globally for its aggressive regulation of major technology companies, often sparring with major social media platforms, such as Facebook and X, over content moderation, and the likes of Apple and Google over antitrust concerns. "These are American companies whether you like it or not," Trump said in comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"They shouldn't be doing that. That's, as far as I'm concerned, a form of taxation. We have some very big complaints with the EU." Trump specifically referenced a court case that Apple lost last year over a $14.4 billion Irish tax bill. The EU's Court of Justice in Luxembourg backed a landmark 2016 decision that Ireland broke state-aid law by giving Apple an unfair advantage, requiring Ireland to claw back the money that had been sitting in an escrow account pending the final ruling.

Pakistan's lower house of parliament on Thursday passed a controversial bill that will give the government sweeping controls on social media, including sending users to prison for spreading disinformation. From a report: The bill was quickly passed after lawmakers from the opposition party of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan staged a walkout to denounce the law. Critics say the government is seeking to further suppress freedom of speech.

Farhatullah Babar, a leading human rights activist, said the latest changes to cybercrime law were aimed at "further stifling the freedom of expression through setting up of multiple authorities under executive control, enlarging the print of unaccountable intelligence agencies." He said the law also "gives sweeping powers to the executive not only over the contents of the message but also the messengers, namely the social media platforms."

Under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, which was introduced in the National Assembly Wednesday, authorities would create an agency with the power to order the immediate blocking of content deemed "unlawful and offensive" from social media, such as content critical of judges, the armed forces, parliament or provincial assemblies. Individuals and organizations posting such content may also be blocked from social media.

LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers alleging the platform disclosed private messages to third parties without consent to train generative AI models. The lawsuit seeks damages for breach of contract and privacy violations, accusing LinkedIn of attempting to minimize scrutiny over its actions. Reuters reports: According to a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data. Customers said LinkedIn then discreetly updated its privacy policy on Sept. 18 to say data could be used to train AI models, and in a "frequently asked questions" hyperlink said opting out "does not affect training that has already taken place."

This attempt to "cover its tracks" suggests LinkedIn was fully aware it violated customers' privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimize public scrutiny and legal fallout, the complaint said. The lawsuit was filed in the San Jose, California, federal court on behalf of LinkedIn Premium customers who sent or received InMail messages, and whose private information was disclosed to third parties for AI training before Sept. 18. It seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract and violations of California's unfair competition law, and $1,000 per person for violations of the federal Stored Communications Act. LinkedIn said in a statement: "These are false claims with no merit."

Donald and Melania Trump have launched a pair of meme coins just before President Trump was sworn into office. The coins are already worth billions of dollars, raising "serious ethical questions and conflicts of interest," said Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. CNN reports: Melania Trump launched her cryptocurrency $MELANIA in a social media post Sunday, sending her husband's cryptocurrency $TRUMP, announced two days earlier, plummeting. "The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now. https://melaniameme.com," the future first lady wrote on X Sunday. Meme coins are a type of highly volatile cryptocurrency inspired by popular internet or cultural trends. They carry no intrinsic value but can soar, or plummet, in price. "My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE!" Trump wrote on X Friday. "It's time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Go to http://gettrumpmemes.com -- Have Fun!" Both coins are trading on the Solana blockchain. [...]

$TRUMP is the first cryptocurrency endorsed by the incoming president, who once trashed bitcoin as "based on thin air." [...] While executive branch employees must follow conflict of interest criminal statutes that prevent them from participating in matters that impact their own financial interests, the law does not apply to the president or the vice president. [...] The Trump coin's market capitalization, which is based on the 200 million coins circulating, is capped at $13 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The meme coin's website said there will be 1 billion Trump coins over the next three years. Both $MELANIA and $TRUMP's websites contain disclaimers saying the coins are "intended to function as a support for, and engagement with" the values of their respective brands and "are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type."

The website says the meme coin is not politically affiliated. But 80% of the coin's supply is held by Trump Organization-affiliate CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which are both subject to a three-year unlocking schedule -- so they cannot sell all of their holdings at once. Trump coin's fully diluted value (which reflects the eventual total supply of Trump coins) stood at around $54 billion as of Monday morning, according to CoinMarketCap. At that value, the 80% linked to Trump is worth a staggering $43 billion, at least on paper. The $TRUMP coin's website says it is "the only official Trump meme. Now, you can get your piece of history. This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn't back down, no matter the odds," the website reads. "Trump owning 80% and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it," Nick Tomaino, a former Coinbase executive, said in a post on X. "Trump should be airdropping to the people rather than enriching himself or his team on this."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A powerful AI tool can predict with high accuracy the location of photos based on features inside the image itself -- such as vegetation, architecture, and the distance between buildings -- in seconds, with the company now marketing the tool to law enforcement officers and government agencies. Called GeoSpy, made by a firm called Graylark Technologies out of Boston, the tool has also been used for months by members of the public, with many making videos marveling at the technology, and some asking for help with stalking specific women. The company's founder has aggressively pushed back against such requests, and GeoSpy closed off public access to the tool after 404 Media contacted him for comment.

Based on 404 Media's own tests and conversations with other people who have used it and investors, GeoSpy could radically change what information can be learned from photos posted online, and by whom. Law enforcement officers with very little necessary training, private threat intelligence companies, and stalkers could, and in some cases already are, using this technology. Dedicated open source intelligence (OSINT) professionals can of course do this too, but the training and skillset necessary can take years to build up. GeoSpy allows essentially anyone to do it. "We are working on something for LE [law enforcement] but it's ," Daniel Heinen, the founder of Graylark and GeoSpy, wrote in a message to the GeoSpy community Discord in July.

GeoSpy has been trained on millions of images from around the world, according to marketing material available online. From that, the tool is able to recognize "distinct geographical markers such as architectural styles, soil characteristics, and their spatial relationships." That marketing material says GeoSpy has strong coverage in the United States, but that it also "maintains global capabilities for location identification." [...] GeoSpy has not received much media attention, but it has become something of a sensation on YouTube. Multiple content creators have tested out the tool, and some try to feed it harder and harder challenges. Now that it's been shut off to the public, users have to request access, which is "available exclusively to qualified law enforcement agencies, enterprise users and government entities," according to the company's website.

The law enforcement-version of GeoSpy is more powerful than what was publicly available, according to Heinen's Discord posts. "Geospy.ai is a demo," he wrote in September. "The real work is the law enforcement models."