A shareholder lawsuit seeking $8 billion from Facebook for alleged violations of user privacy in connection with Cambridge Analytica was reportedly settled Thursday morning.
Noting the harms social networks pose to children, several California senators supported a bill Wednesday that would add warning labels to the platforms. Though several groups and members of the public supported the legislation, several senators raised concerns that AB-56 would be challenged in court and industry attacked warning labels as an inadequate solution.
A proposed change to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) about publicly available information hit a temporary roadblock Wednesday in the Assembly Privacy Committee. Sen. Aisha Wahab (D) said she planned to work with California businesses over the summer to refine SB-435, which failed to clear the committee but is still alive. “We are deeply committed [to] working with industry.”
The U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld Texas' law requiring age verification to access adult websites (see 2506270041) will have a ripple effect, prompting the creation of similar laws in states along with constitutional questions about how and where age verification can happen, said privacy experts in recent blog posts. Similarly, advocacy groups that disagreed with the high court's decision argued it may embolden other states to expand the definition of off-limits material, further challenging the First Amendment and ultimately letting politicians make content decisions (see 2507070037).
AI and data breaches were among top issues last year for Italian data protection authority Garante, it said Tuesday in an annual report.
A New Hampshire state court on Tuesday allowed a consumer protection case against social media platform TikTok to continue, ruling the state has jurisdiction to bring the suit, and that the First Amendment does not bar it from bringing the claims. One claim involving the Consumer Protection Act was dropped, however.
State requirements to display social media warning labels will likely be challenged before they take effect, said Liisa Thomas and other SheppardMullin privacy attorneys Friday.
Several advocacy groups filed amicus briefs supporting NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) in a case challenging a 2023 law requiring social media companies to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for children younger than 18.
Bluesky will verify ages to comply with the U.K. Online Safety Act, the social media platform said on its blog Thursday. The platform said it will deny access to adult content and disable direct messaging for users younger than 18 and those who don’t want to verify their age.
TikTok transferred European Economic Area (EEA) users' personal data to servers in China, the Irish Data Protection Commission said Thursday as it launched a probe into the social media platform's activities.