Campaigners say 21% of people at workshops did not disclose on their applications relationships with firms being discussed More than one in five attenders at EU events on regulating big tech companies did not disclose links to the industry when applying to take part, according to transparency campaigners who say hidden networks are distorting public debate. Researchers at three NGOs analysed nearly 4,000 registrations at European Commission workshops organised earlier this year to test companies’ compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law to curb anti-competitive behaviour. Continue reading...

Chipmaker disputed 2009 decision that it abused its market position in case dating back two decades The US chipmaker Intel has won a long-running battle to quash a fine of more than €1bn imposed by the European Commission for allegedly abusing its market dominance in the sale of computer chips. In a final ruling on Thursday, theEuropean court of justice upheld an earlier judgment that had quashed the €1.06bn (£880m) fine and partly dismissed the charges of anticompetitive behaviour. Continue reading...

Ruling is a fillip for European Commission efforts to clamp down on ‘sweetheart’ tax deals * Business live – latest updates Apple has lost a high-profile, €13bn (£11bn) Irish tax battle with Brussels in a decision that will bolster the European Commission’s efforts to clamp down on favourable “sweetheart” tax deals for multinationals. The European court of justice (ECJ) ruling, which had been eagerly awaited, comes after years of legal wrangling over whether the European Commission was right to demand in 2016 that €13bn in “illegal” tax breaks for Apple should be repaid because it gave the iPhone maker an unfair advantage. Continue reading...

The charges against Pavel Durov increases pressure on Brussels to enforce new European law on the platform The surprise arrest of the Russian-born co-founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, after he stepped off his private jet in Paris last Saturday night, has brought the one-time fringe social network under the glare of the spotlight like never before. Durov’s arrest – after an investigation by the Paris prosecutor into organised crime, child sex abuse images, fraud and money laundering on the platform – also raises the stakes for the European Union, which has adopted the world’s most ambitious laws to police the internet, notably the Digital Services Act (DSA). Coming into force in November 2022, the DSA targets online platforms “too big to care” – in the words of the EU commissioner, Thierry Breton – putting demands on internet firms to remove illegal content, protect children, tackle disinformation and other online harms. Continue reading...

Serbian green campaigner who co-drafted declaration against lithium exploitation now fears for his safety When Aleksandar Matković received the first message threatening his life, he thought it was a prank. The text, sent to his Telegram account just after midnight on 14 August read: “We will follow you until you disappear, scum.” Matković is one of the campaigners who have been at the forefront of widespread protests against plans to develop a massive lithium mine in Serbia. He said: “At first I thought someone was joking but during the morning I got another message, saying ‘how is the struggle against Rio Tinto going?’ from another profile I didn’t know, and the app displayed the sender’s distance as just 500 [metres] away.” Continue reading...

The 9% tariff is much less than the up to 36.3% others face after investigation into Beijing’s ‘unfair’ subsidies of EVs * Business live – latest updates Tesla will face a 9% levy on its Chinese-made cars exported to the EU, the European Commission has said, as it issued an update on its sweeping investigation into Beijing’s “unfair” subsidies of electric vehicles. The tariff on Tesla – far lower than the 21.3% average on companies that cooperated with the EU investigation and 36.3% on those that did not – came after the California-headquartered firm requested individual treatment as part of the wider Brussels inquiry. Continue reading...

Players in EU can access game blocked by Apple and Google by installing it from app store of publisher Epic Games The video game Fortnite is back on mobile phones, four years after Apple and Google pulled it from their app stores. Android users worldwide can install the game, along with two new titles from the publisher, Epic Games, by downloading the company’s new app store. However, only iPhone users in the EU can follow suit as Epic becomes the highest profile company yet to adopt the looser restrictions forced on Apple by the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Continue reading...

Change in policy means developers will be able to communicate with customers outside App Store Apple on Thursday changed its policy in the European Union to allow developers to communicate with their customers outside its App Store after the commission charged the iPhone maker in June for breaching the bloc’s tech rules. The commission had said that under most of the business terms, Apple allows steering only through “link-outs”, meaning that app developers can include a link in their app that redirects the customer to a web page where the customer can conclude a contract. Continue reading...

‘Unpredictable’ privacy regulations prompt Facebook owner to scrap regional plans for multimodal Llama * Business live – latest updates Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will not release an advanced version of its artificial intelligence model in the EU, blaming the decision on the “unpredictable” behaviour of regulators. The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is preparing to issue its Llama model in multimodal form, meaning it is able to work across text, video, images and audio instead of just one format. Llama is an open source model, allowing it to be freely downloaded and adapted by users. Continue reading...

Preliminary findings suggest X breached Digital Services Act in three ways and could be fined 6% of global turnover * Business live – latest updates Elon Musk’s X has been warned by the EU it potentially faces large fines after regulators said its blue-tick system for users is deceptive and in breach of its landmark social media rules. Announcing preliminary findings from an investigation, the European Commission said the platform did not comply with the Digital Services Act. X faces fines of up to 6% of its global turnover if the preliminary findings are confirmed. Continue reading...