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Portuguese NGO Sues TikTok, Says Platform ‘Profits from Children’

A Portugal-based European consumer protection group has sued short-video app TikTok for allegedly allowing children aged under 13 to sign up for an account without parental consent and failing to implement measures to protect them. The lawsuit came a day after Britain’s data watchdog said it had fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds ($15.81 million) for […]

Analysis - Global Climate Coalitions Need Safer Harbour from Antitrust Turbulence

Global companies that form alliances to help them to tackle climate change need clear “safe harbour” guidelines from governments to allay fears they could be tripped up by antitrust rules, legal experts said. Hundreds of companies have banded together into various groups with pledges to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by mid-century. But there […]

Exclusive-EU Chips Act Likely to Get Green Light on April 18 -Sources

The European Union’s 43 billion euro ($47 billion) plan to boost its semiconductor industry and catch up with the United States and Asia is likely to get the green light from EU countries and lawmakers on April 18, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. The European Commission announced the Chips Act […]

AI Experts Disown Musk-Backed Campaign Citing Their Research

Four artificial intelligence experts have expressed concern after their work was cited in an open letter – co-signed by Elon Musk – demanding an urgent pause in research. The letter, dated March 22 and with more than 1,800 signatures by Friday, called for a six-month circuit-breaker in the development of systems “more powerful” than Microsoft-backed […]

Amazon and Microsoft Cloud Services Face UK Antitrust Probe

Amazon and Microsoft, the two dominant cloud providers, face an antitrust investigation in Britain after the communications regulator said some aspects of the market, including fees to switch supplier, were a cause for concern. Ofcom, which started looking into cloud services last year, said it was particularly worried about the practices of Amazon Web Services […]

German Antitrust Regulator Opens Door for Curbs on Apple

Germany’s antitrust regulator has opened the door for measures to curb Apple after deciding that the U.S. tech giant’s market dominance makes it worthy of such measures, the body said in a statement on Wednesday. The Bundeskartellamt regulator has designated Apple a “company of paramount significance for competition across markets”, it said. “The company is […]

Ahead of Xi Meet, Macron Warns about Risks of Cutting off China

French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must resist eroding trade and diplomatic ties with China as he arrived for a state visit on Wednesday, seeking to refute any sense there was an “inescapable spiral” of tension between Beijing and the West. Shortly after touching down ahead of EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, who is […]

Cryptoverse: Bitcoin Traders Like Their Options

Even as bitcoin flies high, investors are keeping their options open, judging by a record race to derivatives. Open interest for bitcoin options and futures has spiked over the past month as fear has stalked global banking, hitting an all-time high of 433,540 contracts on March 23 on Deribit, a leading exchange for crypto-focused derivatives […]

Deutsche Telekom Reaches Majority Stake in T-Mobile U.S. - CEO

 Deutsche Telekom now holds a majority in T-Mobile U.S., the chief executive of the German telecoms company said on Wednesday. The company reached a majority stake in T-Mobile U.S late Tuesday, CEO Tim Höttges said at the company’s annual general meeting. “We have the majority and are the largest shareholder of the world’s most valuable […]

Meta Releases AI Model That Can Identify Items Within Images

 Facebook-owner Meta published an artificial intelligence model on Wednesday that can pick out individual objects from within an image, along with a dataset of image annotations that it said was the largest ever of its kind. The company’s research division said in a blog post that its Segment Anything Model, or SAM, could identify objects […]