In April, MLex Chief Global Digital Risk Correspondent Mike Swift sat down with Benjamin Wiseman, the US Federal Trade Commission's Associate Director, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, for a deep-dive discussion of pressing privacy issues for 2024—including child privacy and addictive algorithms, healthcare data, personal data autonomy …

As 5,000 lawyers, regulators, academics and technologists convened for the International Association of Privacy Professionals Global Privacy Summit 2024, a team of MLex journalists were in Washington DC to chronicle the most important yearly gathering of the world’s privacy community. Covering GPS panels on artificial intelligence, data transfers a…

Polish Justice Minister Adam Bodnar talks about his country's steps to reverse eight years of policies by the previous government. Bodnar, a former human rights commissioner, wants to show European Union officials that Poland has turned the page from the Law and Justice Party. Restoring ties with the EU — and unblocking EU funds that were suspended…

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen talks about the regulatory and legal fallout that followed her release of documents to the press that detailed internal studies about how Facebook’s algorithm worked. She’s now using her nonprofit Beyond the Screen to push for regulatory change as the company is fighting hundreds of lawsuits for allegedly harmi…

Even as it surpasses a database of 40 billion faces to train its algorithms, the founder and chief executive of Clearview AI told MLex in an exclusive interview that it isn't going back to doing business in Europe, the UK, Canada or Australia, where the controversial facial-recognition startup has faced regulatory opposition. In the US, however, Cl…

Australian merger laws are facing a revamp, amid concerns that the voluntary-notification system was being gamed by global dealmakers. But while there’s broad agreement that the voluntary component of the existing regime needs to be scrapped, there are divisions about which model Australia should embrace. The antitrust regulator is campaigning for …

Věra Jourová is a Czech politician and lawyer who has been European Commissioner for Values and Transparency since 2019. She previously served as the EU’s Justice Commissioner. More recently, she has added digital duties after the EU’s digital commissioner Margethe Vestager took a leave of absence. Jourová is now responsible for the enforcement of …

Anu Talus, who succeeded Andrea Jelinek to become the second chair of the European Data Protection Board in May, hopes to build on Jelinek’s work as she focuses on making GDPR enforcement more coherent, efficient and harmonized across the bloc’s member states. In an extended conversation with MLex on the sidelines of the Global Privacy Assembly mee…

Approaching his second anniversary as the UK’s Information Commissioner, John Edwards believes the culture change he has led since taking the job at the start of 2022 has the regulator ready for an “agile” spectrum of responses to data protection problems.Sitting down with MLex recently for an extended conversation at the Global Privacy Assembly me…

Halimah DeLaine Prado is Google’s top lawyer, leading what she describes as an in-house, multidisciplinary law firm within the tech giant. As Google marks its 25th birthday this fall, it has rarely, if ever, been under more legal pressure around the world, including multiple antitrust and privacy trials in the US that could force changes to the cro…

On today’s podcast we interview a leading European Union lawmaker about the EU’s proposed Artificial Intelligence Act. Eva Maydell, a member of the European Parliament involved in the final talks on the AI Act, discusses how the EU's pioneering bill shouldn’t be made “so burdensome or so uninviting” that AI investors avoid or leave Europe. She desc…

Sam Levine, the new head of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, says he’s proud of his agency’s recent achievements on protecting the public by using the “very broad, flexible authority” conferred by the law. In an in-depth interview with MLex, Levine says that the FTC Act allows the Bureau to pursue technology companies o…

New draft merger guidelines published by the US Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice appear designed to give the two antitrust enforcers a much-needed boost to how they tackle the review of big deals. The 13 principles outlined shed light on the departments’ thinking. However, critics say that the document’s selective use of casel…

The European Union has new powers to police subsidies handed out by foreign governments — powers designed to ensure that state support doesn’t distort merger activity and public procurement. However, with new powers comes great responsibility — and a solid supply of red tape. The European Commission will also be able to open investigations into sta…

The ultimately unsuccessful attempt to hire an American competition expert to fill the coveted role of chief economist with the European Commission’s antitrust division has highlighted institutional divisions in the bloc. No-one involved in the Fiona Scott Morton affair has emerged well from the fiasco, which pitted French President Emmanuel Macron…

There’s a growing sense of frustration and disquiet among European carmakers, as they become increasingly vocal about how EU emissions policies will affect them. While they’re broadly on board with the need to build up the production of electric vehicles, they’re calling for a more flexible and pragmatic approach from the regulators over the timeli…

New rules designed to curb the European Union’s outbound investment in the name of geo-political security may prove politically fraught, with European business bristling at the announcement. At the heart of these new rules lies the hope that the capital, research, expertise and knowledge of EU companies isn’t used to fuel technological advances tha…

On paper, the EU’s proposal to pursue a design for a digital euro should be viewed favorably by the bloc’s banks, because the model targets retail consumers, intermediated by banks and payment-service providers. This should allay the banks’ fear of being sidelined by the digital-euro ecosystem. However, the problem may now lie with convincing consu…

Google is back in the European Union’s firing line over its ad businesses, with the bloc’s enforcer suggesting that the tech giant’s operations may be anticompetitive. But what’s truly radical about this most recent clash is the remedy that top official Margrethe Vestager is putting on the table: a requirement that Google divest part of its service…

The whirlwind tour of Asia by the head of OpenAI has been unfolding against the backdrop of growing concern over the need to regulate generative artificial intelligence. Yet the call by Sam Altman for authorities in Asia to consider a light-touch approach appears in synch with at least some jurisdictions in the region, where policy makers appear bo…

On today’s podcast we examine the regulatory scramble around the world to meet the challenge posed by artificial intelligence and its many applications. The European Union and the United States are urgently seeking to develop a code of conduct, in a bid to establish “guardrails” for generative AI. Meanwhile, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, is on a b…

Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU has a glorious past, having been used by the bloc’s antitrust regulators to inflict real pain on Big Tech — including Microsoft, Google and Intel. But over the past few years, the tool has lost some of its shine, with lawyers, economists and the companies themselves deploying an increased level…

Five years have gone by since the implementation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation but managers at Meta Platforms aren’t likely celebrate the milestone. On Monday of this week, the tech giant’s Facebook social-media platform received a whopping $1.3 billion fine. The Meta unit was also told to stop transferring personal dat…

The “Brexit dividend” was the assurance that the United Kingdom’s economy stood to gain from the country leaving the European Union. The theory was that, once unshackled from the EU’s burdensome regulation, the UK be able to apply a light-touch to rules and become a European economic powerhouse. That dividend has yet to materialize, however, with s…

With inflation rampant around the globe, antitrust authorities are facing public and political pressure to act against companies seen as using the global trend to ramp up prices. However, a lack of evidence of collusion has left many regulators feeling impotent. In this week’s podcast, we discuss ways in which some jurisdictions are using market in…

Microsoft has lashed out at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority over its decision to veto the software giant’s $69 billion acquisition of gaming company Activision Blizzard. Microsoft President Brad Smith called the decision “the darkest day of our four decades in Britain,” warning that the regulator’s red light had shaken the company’s conf…

South Korea has been at the forefront of digital-platform regulation for many years now. But since 2022, the country has been trying something new: self-regulation. The concept has been put forward as an alternative to platform-specific legislation and it requires powerful platforms, to create their own rules and standards. Now, in an exclusive int…

It’s one thing to lose a high-profile antitrust lawsuit targeting a tech behemoth on the merits of the case; having a judge rule against you for missing deadlines is another. Yet a procedural stumble was enough to place the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority on the receiving end of a court ruling that upended its probe of Apple’s mobile browser…

The trade confrontation between the US and China is reverberating in Japan, where businesses are facing a flurry of regulations imposed as a result of the growing tension between the two powers. It’s a particularly complex issue for Japan, given that China is the country’s largest trading partner and the US its second-largest. The geopolitical conc…

MLex’s data-privacy and security team was out in force at the International Association of Privacy Professionals Global Privacy Summit 2023, held in Washington, DC. And there was no shortage of news for our reporters to cover — including the latest chatter on the pesky chatbot ChatGPT. Perhaps unusually, there was also a degree of optimism on the p…

For antitrust enforcers wanting to get a message out to the world, the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Spring Meeting is a time to shine. This year was no exception — in fact, with Covid-related travel restrictions now a thing of the past, attendance at the Washington DC even was up. US federal and state enforcers were there to remind the anti…

Whether it’s the enormous — even subversive — potential of the GPTChat program, or the “Balenciaga Pope” Internet meme, artificial intelligence remains in the news. But in Europe, as in the United States, regulators are playing catch-up — albeit to differing degrees. In the European Union, AI regulation is advancing swiftly, even as it gets caught …

The recent European Court of Justice victory for TowerCast has reverberated around the European Union, with the court’s decision suggesting a path for regulators to deal with so-called killer acquisitions. The court sided with an interpretation confirming that a prohibition on abuse of a dominant position is an acceptable avenue for officials wanti…

Last week’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank has again focused world attention on the health of US-based lenders and the regulatory framework in which they operate. The US government stepped in to protect deposits, as investors rushed to withdraw their funds — Silicon Valley Bank suffered a $42 billion run in a single day. However…

Once the realm of science fiction, today the prospect of artificial intelligence having a say in our lives is demanding the attention of regulators and lawmakers. In the US, a patchwork of state privacy laws taking effect this year includes the right not to let increasingly sophisticated AI and machine-learning technologies use personal data to mak…

The technology developments for connected and automated cars are intersecting across a number of global policy areas. From privacy regulation, to global trade discussions and national energy policy debates, these breakthrough vehicles look set to not only revolutionize our daily lives, but also global auto markets and the rules that govern them.…

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the foundational law that underpins the modern Internet, is facing its first-ever review in the US Supreme Court. The lawsuits targeting Twitter and YouTube are set to establish whether the platforms should be held responsible for hosting extremist content. The case could lead to one of the most import…

On paper, Meta won its court case against the US Federal Trade Commission fair and square, allowing it to acquire Within, a software company that develops apps for virtual-reality devices. Yet the outcome could have been worse for the US antitrust enforcer: Meta failed in its attempt to convince the judge that the FTC had used “dead letter” law; th…

US President Joe Biden has sounded a warning to social-media companies: Put child safety ahead of profits. Meanwhile, some lawmakers and policy officials are arguing that the best way to keep children out of harm’s way is to ensure they stay off social-media platforms altogether. For its part, the FTC says that to address the problem, it needs to g…

In the first of a three-part podcast series about the US Federal Trade Commission, the MLex panel discusses the high-profile clashes at the very top of the agency. The antitrust world was rocked recently about the very noisy resignation of Commissioner Christine Wilson. Today’s program examines the extent to which the criticisms leveled by Wilson a…

Assa Abloy’s move to outflank a US Department of Justice attempt to block the Swedish-based conglomerate’s acquisition of a Spectrum Brands unit has sparked a heated debate. After the DOJ moved to block the deal, amid competition concerns, Assa Abloy announced it was ready to divest two of its divisions to scupper the DOJ’s competition concerns. Bu…

As one of Australia’s top antitrust lawyers, Gina Cass-Gottlieb had a reputation for being calm, measured and in control — honing a consensus-based leadership style that appears to have served her well. Now, as the head of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Cass-Gottlieb’s sang froid will be put to the test, as the competition enforc…

Why would US automakers be taking such a close interest in privacy policy in the US? The answer is simple: smart cars. The personal data generated by the next generation of connected vehicles means that, as data harvesters, carmakers will be comparable to smartphone makers and app developers. And with state governments developing their own privacy …

Today’s podcast brings together MLex financial-services reporters around the globe to discuss our most recent special report, covering the regulation of crypto assets and policies that address sustainable finance.De către MLex Market Insight

Google has found itself fighting essentially the same battle in two different courts against two different coalitions of enforcers. In so doing, the search giant is exposing itself to a potential court loss that could see it forced to divest parts of its digital advertising business. Meanwhile, Google is also alone among the tech giants in its adve…

Meta Platforms can expect a bruising 2023 when it comes to data protection enforcement in Europe, with a series of cases taking aim at its business model and the possibility of more hefty fines and settlements on the horizon. And in the United States, the road ahead is just as rough, with the company agreeing to pay $725 million to settle claims re…

The Year of the Rabbit will play out against an interesting background for Chinese antitrust policy and enforcement. On the one hand, the government will be keen to kickstart the economy, following the abandonment of the zero-Covid policy — leading to enforcement being dialed down. Yet competition policy is likely to remain prominent, as the govern…

On today’s 2023 preview podcast, our London-based financial-crime reporter, Martin Coyle, walks us through some of the legislative and enforcement changes that lie ahead, both in the UK and internationally. And top of the agenda: the departure of the UK Serious Fraud Office head, Lisa Osofsky, whose tenure had become mired in controversy.…

The issue of how best to regulate cryptocurrencies came to the fore in 2022, with the spectacular implosion of crypto-exchange FTX prompting plenty of soul-searching. The upheaval appears to have paved the way for what is likely to be the big regulatory story of 2023: how best to rein in the excesses of the new ledger-based technologies. Yet as off…

With several antitrust battles between the European Commission and Big Tech likely to come to a head in 2023, the next 12 months are likely to tell us something about the legacy of the bloc’s antitrust chief. In this special podcast to mark the start of 2023, Nicholas Hirst ponders the challenges facing Vestager, as she nears the end of what’s expe…