Europe is coming for loot boxes, and the games industry is bracing
Europe is coming for loot boxes, and the games industry is bracing

The video-game industry is bracing for a wave of European rules. They could limit what children play, and cost the sector billions in lost sales. A cluster of European regulations is taking aim at how games are sold to minors. Loot boxes are the main t…

Europe is coming for loot boxes, and the games industry is bracing
Europe is coming for loot boxes, and the games industry is bracing

The video-game industry is bracing for a wave of European rules. They could limit what children play, and cost the sector billions in lost sales. A cluster of European regulations is taking aim at how games are sold to minors. Loot boxes are the main t…

Investors sue Oracle, say it hid how shaky the OpenAI deal was
Investors sue Oracle, say it hid how shaky the OpenAI deal was

The strain inside the AI boom’s biggest infrastructure bet has reached a courtroom. Oracle’s own investors are suing, saying the company hid how shaky its $300bn deal with OpenAI really was. A Michigan public pension fund, the City of Sterling Heights …

Spain’s LALIGA piracy blocks knocked out 500,000+ innocent websites
Spain’s LALIGA piracy blocks knocked out 500,000+ innocent websites

For much of this year, Spanish internet users have lost access to huge parts of the web on match days. Not pirate streams, but human rights groups, climate charities and business tools. A new report puts hard numbers on the damage, and they are stagger…

Google loses final appeal over record €4.1 billion EU Android fine
Google loses final appeal over record €4.1 billion EU Android fine

The Court of Justice of the European Union has dismissed Google’s final appeal against a €4.1 billion antitrust fine, ending an eight-year fight over how the company built Android into a vehicle for its search and browser dominance. The ruling, handed …

Super Micro says two Taiwan staff detained in probe involving its AI servers
Super Micro says two Taiwan staff detained in probe involving its AI servers

Taiwanese court has ordered the detention of two Super Micro employees as part of a widening investigation into whether AI servers built with Nvidia chips were illegally routed to China. The Keelung District Court detained the pair, identified in Taiwa…

Judge clears states to try claim that Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram
Judge clears states to try claim that Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram

Meta will have to defend in court the accusation that it built Facebook and Instagram to addict children, after a federal judge on Monday refused to dismiss the heart of a lawsuit brought by attorneys general from 29 states. US District Judge Yvonne Go…

Meta paid contractors to pose as teens and probe rival AI chatbots
Meta paid contractors to pose as teens and probe rival AI chatbots

The project ran under the internal name Cannes, and a Meta contractor called Covalen managed it. WIRED reported that hundreds of contractors created dummy under-18 accounts. They sent prompts and images to competitors’ chatbots, then logged the replies…

EU opens antitrust probe into Align over Invisalign and scanner tying
EU opens antitrust probe into Align over Invisalign and scanner tying

The European Commission has decided to look closely at how you straighten teeth, or more precisely, at the machine a dentist uses to scan them. Brussels has opened a formal antitrust investigation into Align Technology, the American company behind Invi…

Australia sues Amazon over Prime Video ads, citing unfair contract terms
Australia sues Amazon over Prime Video ads, citing unfair contract terms

The ACCC alleges Amazon buried unfair terms in Prime contracts, then used them to add ads to Prime Video for more than a million subscribers without offering refunds. The complaint Australia’s consumer regulator filed against Amazon this week turns on …