Regulation

RFK Jr. has declared that AI could make the FDA “irrelevant,” with entirely predictable effects on The Verge’s long-suffering health and wearable expert Victoria Song.

Pilots have apparently been meowing and barking at each other over air traffic control radio, but the Federal Aviation Administration isn’t amused by the bit. Some in the industry fear pilots will tune out the jokes and miss timely safety information, according to CNN.

The European Commission says it will order Meta to roll back its policy to only allow rival AI assistants on WhatsApp for a year if they pay an access fee, which appears to violate EU competition rules. Meta’s conduct “risks blocking competitors from entering or expanding in the rapidly growing market for AI assistants,” according to the Commission.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is worried about X Money, Elon Musk’s upcoming payment platform, and the risks it poses to consumers and the financial system. She’s probably right to worry, but the solution might have been in front of us the whole time:

According to the ruling, New Jersey regulators can’t ban Kalshi from allowing users in the state to bet on sporting events, as Reuters reports:

Lawsuits against Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois accuse the states of violating the CFTC’s “exclusive regulatory authority” over predicting betting markets operated by companies like Kalshi and Polymarket. The CFTC claims the three states have attempted to “outlaw, regulate, or otherwise restrain” prediction betting as concerns grow over potential insider trading.

Aptoide’s AppArena is now available in Japan as an Apple Store alternative. It comes after regulators required Apple and Google to support third-party app marketplaces and payment systems. AppArena features AI-assisted discovery of apps and games, cashback rewards, and 15-minute game trials.

The formal investigation opened by the European Commission will focus on five areas: age assurance, default account settings, reporting of illegal content, dissemination of prohibited products, and the grooming and recruitment of children for criminal activities. These DSA probes can take a while, and no timeline has been provided.

After initially hitting 4Chan with a paltry £20,000 (about $26,500) penalty for hindering its investigation, Ofcom has now fined the website £520,000 ($690,000) for failing to comply with age assurance obligations. Should non-compliance continue, 4Chan risks facing additional daily fines of up to £800 (about $1,060).

He was commenting on deepfakes about Iran war being used to create online chaos. It’s quite the turn from a man who’s been aggressively deregulating the AI industry, blocking states from implementing their own safety guardrails, and personally using AI to spread political disinformation, smear opponents, and fabricate endorsements.

We have no reason to believe that Live Nation is about to bankroll a Broadway spectacular based on the First Lady just because it managed to settle with the DoJ. We’re just saying, it feels like there’s a precedent.

I’ve been updating it for hours with bits from court documents, blog posts, email fact-checks, even a quick interview with Google Android boss Sameer Samat and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. I’m about done, but I still need to parse the new Games Level Up Program and Apps Experience Program...

“The parties expect to submit a revised proposal to the Court by March 4, 2026.” That’s today.

While Trump’s federal regulators are seemingly in the bag for Larry Ellison’s big dumb gift to his large adult son, The New York Times notes that state attorneys general can sue to block mergers in the US, and EU regulators will have a say since properties like HBO Max and CNN are offered globally.

The $34.5 billion deal to combine two of the biggest US cable providers can now go ahead after appeasing Brendan Carr by pledging to drop DEI policies.

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office dished out a £14.47 million (about $19.5 million) penalty for Reddit’s previous lack of robust age verification and failure to assess risks to children before January 2025. That’s just a smidge higher than the £247,590 (about $335,000) fine Imgur was hit with for similar reasons earlier this month.

California regulators killed a proposal that would have imposed fees on gas-burning furnaces and water heaters that release smog-forming pollutants. More than 20,000 comments they received opposing the proposal were generated by a single AI platform, some addressed from people with no idea their names had been used.

A coalition including the American Public Health Association, American Lung Association, and Sierra Club have filed suit against the Trump administration for repealing the landmark ‘endangerment finding.’ The repeal — if successful — could strip away the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to to regulate planet-heating pollution.

Europe’s privacy watchdog has opened yet another investigation into the millions of sexualized images, some of children, produced and shared on the platform last month. It joins the EU’s DSA effort already underway, whatever France is doing, and a few more in the UK.

There are plenty of good reasons to have your doubts about Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, but he’s right — if understandably self-serving — in criticizing Russia’s “authoritarian” restrictions on both Telegram and WhatsApp.

The European Commission has weighed in on the November decision to block the likes of ChatGPT and Copilot from WhatsApp, and thinks it violates EU antitrust laws. It’s surprisingly fast for the organization, which called the issue “urgent” because of the risk of “irreparable” damage to competition in the nascent AI industry.

The fine, a measly £247,590 (about $335,000), is because Imgur owner MediaLab wasn’t checking users ages, and so handled young kids’ data without proper consent measures. After the ICO warned a fine was coming last September, Imgur started blocking UK users entirely — a ban which is still in effect.

There are many important safety reasons to support China’s move to ban hidden, electric door handles from EVs, but also a pettier one: they’re just bad, unintuitive, and inconvenient handles.

The Trump administration ordered five major offshore wind projects to pause construction in December, suddenly citing national security risks even though developers had previously secured approvals to start building. After the companies filed suit, federal courts have now allowed all five projects to start construction again.

The Trump administration is quietly weakening regulations meant to protect groundwater and limit radiation exposure to workers at new nuclear reactors, NPR reports. Trump has worked to speed up the deployment of new nuclear reactor designs to power AI data centers.

At least in the UK, where the walkback comes after the country’s CMA opened a consultation on forcing Google to do just that, having given the company “strategic market status” last year. Ron Eden, Google’s principal for product management, says: