Tag: European Union

EU leaders back new Iran sanctions after attack on Israel

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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European Union leaders decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran’s missile and drone attack on Israel left world powers scrambling to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East.

The summit in Brussels is the first meeting of the EU’s 27 national leaders since Saturday’s attack, more than six months into the war between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Israel has signalled it will retaliate but has not said how. EU leaders condemned the Iranian attack, reaffirmed their commitment to Israel’s security and called on all sides to prevent more tensions, including in Lebanon.

“We feel it’s very important to do everything to isolate Iran,” said summit chairman Charles Michel, adding the new sanctions against the Islamic Republic would target companies involved in the production of drones and missiles.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was important that Israel “does not respond with a massive attack of its own.”

Italy spoke separately ahead of G7 talks in favour of sanctions against arms suppliers linked to the attack against Israel, as well as those behind attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

Iran launched its assault in response to an April 1 strike on its embassy in Damascus which it blamed on Israel. Tel Aviv started its broader military offensive in Gaza after Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Israel and Ukraine 

EU foreign ministers are due to continue the sanctions work on Monday as the United States and its Western allies hope new steps against Iran will help limit any Israeli retaliation.

The EU already has multiple programmes that target Iran for human rights abuses, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and Tehran’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Germany, France and several EU states are looking at expanding a scheme that seeks to curb the supply of Iranian drones to Russia to include the provision of missiles and cover deliveries to Iranian proxies in the Middle East.

Belgium backed introducing sanctions against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps but Scholz said that required further legal checks. The bloc’s top diplomat has said that could only happen if a national authority in the EU found that the group had been involved in terrorist activity.

Analysts say Iran is unlikely to face more severe economic punishment because of worries about boosting oil prices and angering top buyer China.

With the Middle East capturing much of the EU’s attention, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed for more help in holding the line against Russia, which unleashed an invasion against its neighbour more than two years ago.

“Here in Ukraine, in our part of Europe, unfortunately, we do not have the level of defence that we all saw in the Middle East a few days ago,” Zelenskiy told the summit, after Israel and allies mostly shot down the incoming drones and missiles.

“It reflects our current key need – the need for air defence,” he said, according to an EU official, repeating his calls for speedier deliveries of the weapons and ammunition previously promised to Ukraine.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

EU’s new tech laws are working, small browsers gain market share

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Independent browser companies in the European Union are seeing a spike in users in the first month after EU legislation forced Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Apple to make it easier for users to switch to rivals, according to data provided to Reuters by six companies.

The early results come after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act, which aims to remove unfair competition, took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers from a “choice screen.”

Browsers are software that help users connect to the internet and are traditionally offered by big technology companies like Apple and Google for free in exchange for tracking which websites consumers visit and selling advertisement to them.

In mobile devices that run Android, Chrome browser comes as default and iPhones with Safari, making them the dominant browsers in the market.

Cyprus-based Aloha Browser said users in the EU jumped 250% in March – one of the first companies to give monthly growth numbers since the new regulations came in.

Founded in 2016, Aloha, which markets itself as a privacy-focused alternative to browsers owned by big tech, has 10 million monthly average users and earns money through paid subscriptions, rather than selling ads by tracking users.

“Before, EU was our number four market, right now it’s number two,” Aloha CEO Andrew Frost Moroz said in an interview.

Norway’s Vivaldi, Germany’s Ecosia and U.S.-based Brave have also seen user numbers rise following the new regulation.

U.S.-based DuckDuckGo, which has about 100 million users, and its bigger rival, Norway-based Opera are also seeing growth in users, but said the choice screen rollout is still not complete.

“We are experiencing record user numbers in the EU right now,” said Jan Standal, vice president at Opera, which counts over 324 million global users.

CHOSEN ONES

Under the new EU rules, mobile software makers are required to show a choice screen where users can select a browser, search engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones.

Previously, tech companies such as Apple and Google loaded phones with default settings that included their preferred services, such as the voice assistant Siri for iPhones. Changing these settings required a more complicated process.

Apple is now showing up to 11 browsers in addition to Safari in the choice screens curated for each of the 27 countries in the EU, and will update those screens once every year for each country.

While DuckDuckGo and Opera are offered in Apple’s list in all 27 countries, Aloha is in 26 countries, Ecosia is in 13 and Vivaldi in 8.

Google is currently showing browser choices on devices made by the company and said new devices made by other companies running Android operating system will also display choice screen in the coming months.

A Google spokesperson said they do not have data on choice screens to share yet.

As iPhones have a bigger market share than Google-branded phones, the growth for smaller browsers is currently coming at the cost of Safari.

Opera said most of the positive trends are from people making Opera the default browser on their iPhones.

But browser companies criticized how Apple and Google rolled out the new features which they described as slow and clunky, and they believe are slowing the migration of mobile users to new browser choices.

Mozilla, which owns the Firefox browser, estimates that only 19% of iPhone users in the region received an update in a roll-out that appeared much slower than previous software updates, the company said.

In iPhones, users can see the choice screen only when they click Safari, and then users are shown a list of browsers with no additional information, said Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, CEO of Norway’s Vivaldi.

“The process is just so convoluted that it’s easiest for (users) to select Safari or potentially some other known name,” he said.

The complicated design has led European Commission to start a non-compliance investigation into whether Apple may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Amazon loses court fight to suspend European Union tech rules’ ad clause

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Amazon on Wednesday lost its fight to suspend a requirement regarding its online advertising under EU tech rules after Europe’s top court backed EU regulators, saying EU interests outweigh the US online retailer’s material interests.

Under the Digital Services Act (DSA) which kicked in last year, Amazon was designated as a very large online platform subject to tough rules to tackle illegal and harmful content on its platform.

The company subsequently challenged a DSA requirement to make publicly available a repository containing detailed information on its online advertising and also asked for an interim measure until the court rules on the case.

A lower tribunal in September agreed to its request for an interim measure to suspend the contested obligation, which prompted the European Commission to turn to Europe’s top court.

The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) set aside the suspension order and dismissed Aamzon’s application for an interim measure.

The judge said that Amazon’s argument that the obligation unlawfully limits its fundamental rights to respect private life and the freedom to conduct a business was not irrelevant.

He also said that without a suspension, it was likely that Amazon would suffer serious and irreparable harm before any judgment annulling the Commission’s decision.

However, he said a suspension could have a detrimental impact on the objectives of the DSA.

“Suspension would lead to a delay, potentially for several years, in the full achievement of the objectives of the Regulation on a Single Market for Digital Services and therefore potentially allow an online environment threatening fundamental rights to persist or develop,” the judge said.

“The interests defended by the EU legislature prevail, in the present case, over Amazon’s material interests, with the result that the balancing of interests weighs in favour of rejecting the request for suspension.”

Amazon said: “We are disappointed with this decision, and maintain that Amazon doesn’t fit the description of a ‘Very Large Online Platform’ (VLOP) under the DSA, and should not be designated as such.”

Also Read: Amazon makes largest three-decade external investment, adds $2.75 billion to AI startup Anthropic

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Google fined €250 million in French clash with news publishers

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Alphabet Inc.’s Google has been fined €250 million ($271 million) by France’s competition watchdog for failing to broker agreements with media outlets for publishing links to their content and for plundering press content to train its AI technology.

The move from the French authority marks another escalation in its bid to get Google to deal with the media sector more fairly, after having previously slapped the US tech giant with a €500 million fine for similar abuses.

The regulator said Wednesday that Google had failed to respect commitments to negotiate deals with press publishers in good faith, and that it had trained its “Bard” generative AI chatbot — now called Gemini — on press content, without notifying the authority or the publishers.

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The French antitrust authority has been seeking to force Big Tech firms to negotiate deals with press publishers for republishing their content. Their so-called neighboring rights were targeted as part of the European Union’s 2019 Copyright Directive.

The German antitrust authority previously ditched an investigation into Google’s News Showcase service after the company settled its concerns. In 2014, Google withdrew its News service from Spain after the country adopted laws that allow Spanish publications to charge Google for publishing snippets to their work. Google News was eventually reinstated in Spain.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Apple says its complying with EU’s Digital Markets Act amid criticism

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Apple on Monday fended off criticism that it has not done enough to open up its closed eco-system as required under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, saying it has complied with the landmark legislation.

The DMA sets out a list of obligations and prohibitions for Apple, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, TikTok owner ByteDance, Meta Platforms and Microsoft which the six companies had to abide by on March 7.

Apple has in recent weeks announced a series of changes from allowing app developers to distribute their iPhone apps directly to consumers instead of through Apple’s App Store to letting developers distribute their apps to users in the European Union outside of the App Store.

The company told app developers, business users and rivals at a day-long hearing organised by the European Commission that it has redesigned its systems to comply with the DMA.

“We were guided first and foremost by ensuring that we’ve complied with the law. And then second, that we did it in a way that was consistent with our values and consistent with the language that we’ve developed with our users over a very long period of time. And we think we’ve accomplished that,” Apple’s lawyer Kyle Andeer told the hearing.

“And I think we’re focused on it from a user perspective. Now, it’s not to say that we’re not focused on the impact of developers, but I think from our perspective first and foremost, we’ll be tracking very carefully what’s the impact of all of these different changes on the user experience that we’ve delivered to our customers for 15, 16 years through the iPhone?”

Meta will present its compliance efforts at a separate hearing on Tuesday, Amazon on Wednesday, Alphabet on Thursday, ByteDance on Friday and Microsoft next Tuesday.

Companies that fail to comply with the DMA risk investigations that can lead to fines of as much as 10% of their global annual turnover.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Europe adopts AI law — everything you need to know

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In a significant move to regulate the ever-evolving field of artificial intelligence (AI), the European Union on Thursday adopted the AI Act. This legislation aims to strike a delicate balance between promoting innovation and mitigating potential risks associated with AI.

Passed by an overwhelming majority in the EU parliament, with 523 votes in favour and 46 against, the AI Act introduces stringent regulations for developers of high-risk AI systems. These regulations target advanced AI models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini, compelling developers to address potential threats such as accidents and cyberattacks.

Also read: Google restricts AI chatbot Gemini from answering queries on global elections

Transparency lies at the heart of the AI Act, requiring AI developers to disclose the data used to train their systems and comply with EU copyright laws. Moreover, high-risk products, including medical devices and educational systems, face additional obligations to ensure safety.

Non-compliance with these regulations carries hefty penalties, The EU can slap AI providers with fines ranging between $8.2 million and $38.2 million, or 1.5-7% of a company’s global turnover, depending on the size of the violation.

The AI Act also emphasises the importance of consumer awareness when interacting with AI technologies. For instance, deepfake images produced using AI must be clearly labelled, and chatbots must disclose that they are AI-powered during interactions.

Certain AI applications, such as predictive policing and emotion recognition systems, have been outright banned in workplaces, schools, and social settings due to their potential risks. Additionally, the law prohibits police officers from using real-time facial recognition technology, except in cases involving serious crimes like rape or terrorism, and under strict judicial oversight.

While Europe takes the lead in AI regulation, discussions on similar regulations are ongoing worldwide, including in countries like China, the United States, and India. The AI Act marks a significant milestone in global efforts to ensure the responsible development and deployment of AI.

Also read: Cabinet approves ambitious ₹10,372 crore India AI Programme

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Apple to let EU developers distribute apps directly from their sites

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Software developers who use Apple’s App Store will be able to distribute apps to EU users directly from their websites this spring, the company said on Tuesday, as part of changes required by new EU rules forcing Apple to open up its closed eco-system.

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which kicked in last week, requires Apple to offer alternative app stores on iPhones and to allow developers to opt out of using its in-app payment system, which charges fees of up to 30%.

“We’re providing more flexibility for developers who distribute apps in the European Union, including introducing a new way to distribute apps directly from a developer’s website,” Apple said in a blog post.

“Apple will provide authorised developers access to APIs (application programming interfaces) that facilitate the distribution of their apps from the web, integrate with system functionality, back up and restore users’ apps, and more,” the company said.

Other changes include allowing developers who set up alternative app marketplaces to offer a catalogue solely made up of the marketplace developer’s own apps with immediate effect.

Developers can choose how to design in-app promotions, discounts and other deals when directing users to complete a transaction on their website instead of using Apple’s template.

Apple’s changes come amid continuing criticism from rivals that its compliance efforts are falling short. DMA violations can cost companies fines as much as 10% of their global turnover.

Also Read: Apple rolls out iOS 17.4: EU compliance, new emojis, transcripts for Podcasts and more

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Apple faces hefty 1.8 billion euro fine in EU antitrust Spotify lawsuit

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Apple was hit with an EU antitrust fine of over 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 billion) on Monday, its first ever, for preventing Spotify and other music streaming services from informing users of payment options outside its App Store.

The European Commission’s decision was triggered by a 2019 complaint by Swedish music streaming service Spotify over this restriction and Apple’s 30% App Store fees.

The European Union competition enforcer said Apple’s restrictions constituted unfair trading conditions, a relatively novel argument in an antitrust case and also used by the Dutch antitrust agency in a decision against Apple in 2021 in a case brought by dating app providers.

The EU competition enforcer said it added an additional lump sum of 1.8 billion euros to the basic amount as a deterrent to Apple and because a significant part of the harm caused by Apple’s conduct was non-monetary. It did not say what the basic amount was.

“”For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

“They did so by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” she said.

Apple criticised the EU decision, saying it would challenge it in court.

“The decision was reached despite the Commission’s failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm, and ignores the realities of a market that is thriving, competitive, and growing fast,” the company said in a statement.

“The primary advocate for this decision — and the biggest beneficiary — is Spotify, a company based in Stockholm, Sweden. Spotify has the largest music streaming app in the world, and has met with the European Commission more than 65 times during this investigation,” it said.

It said the Swedish company pays no commission to Apple as it sells its subscriptions on its website and not on Apple’s App Store.

Vestager’s order to Apple to remove its App Store restrictions echoes the same requirement under new EU tech rules known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) which Apple has to comply with on March 7.

Apple’s fine, however, is about a quarter of the 8.25 billion euro fines the EU regulator meted out to Alphabet’s Google in three cases in the previous decade.

In contrast to the music streaming case, Apple is seeking to settle another EU antitrust investigation by offering to open up its tap-and-go mobile payment systems to rivals.

EU regulators, who subsequently sought feedback from rivals and users, will likely accept its offer without fining the company.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Meta targeted in privacy complaints by 8 EU consumer groups

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Meta Platforms was hit with privacy complaints on Thursday as eight EU consumer groups asked watchdogs to act against the Facebook owner for allegedly breaching the bloc’s privacy rules when it hoovers up user data.

The complaints by consumer groups in the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain to data protection authorities in their countries are the latest grievances against Meta’s trove of user data.

The consumer bodies said Meta is not complying with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules on fair processing, data minimisation and purpose limitation and that there was no legal basis for the company’s data collection and processing.

“Surveillance-based business models pose all kinds of problems under the GDPR and it’s time for data protection authorities to stop Meta’s unfair data processing and its infringing on people’s fundamental rights,” Ursula Pachl, deputy director general of the European Consumer Organisation said in a statement.

She also criticised Meta’s recent launch of paid, ad-free subscriptions to Facebook and Instagram in Europe, which the company said aims to comply with new EU tech rules.

But critics say this amounts to users having to pay for their privacy. Users who do not mind ads can continue to use the two services for free.

“Meta’s offer to consumers is smoke and mirrors to cover up what is, at its core, the same old hoovering up of all kinds of sensitive information about people’s lives which it then monetises through its invasive advertising model,” Pachl said.

Meta has said subscription for no ads addresses the latest regulatory developments, guidance and judgments shared by European regulators and the courts in recent years.

Also Read: Meta to hide more content from teens on Instagram and Facebook

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Meta to set up team to counter disinformation, AI abuse in European Parliament elections

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Facebook owner Meta will set up a team to tackle disinformation and the abuse of generative artificial intelligence in the run-up to European Parliament elections in June amid concerns about election interference and misleading AI-generated content.

The rapid growth of generative AI, which can create text, images and video in seconds in response to prompts, has triggered fears that the new technology could be used to disrupt major elections across the world this year.

European Parliament elections will take place June 6-9. Its 720 lawmakers, together with EU governments, pass new EU policies and laws.

“As the election approaches, we’ll activate an Elections Operations Center to identify potential threats and put mitigations in place in real time,” Marco Pancini, Meta’s head of EU affairs, said in a blog post.

He said experts from the company’s intelligence, data science, engineering, research, operations, content policy and legal teams will focus on combating misinformation, tackling influence operations and counter the risks related to the abuse of generative AI.

Meta, which currently works with 26 independent fact-checking organisations across the European Union covering 22 languages, will add three new partners in Bulgaria, France, and Slovakia, Pancini said.

Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and 17 other tech companies earlier this month agreed to work together to prevent deceptive artificial-intelligence content from interfering with elections across the globe this year.

Also Read: TikTok to ramp up fight against fake news, covert influence ahead of EU elections

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow