Philippines lawmakers approved a key provision in the proposed Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Card Registration Act mandating that social media accounts are created using a legal name and phone number, according to a statement made by a senator Thursday. The legislation aims to eliminate illegal activities enabled by mobile phones, the internet, or other electronic [...]

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) Friday announced draft provisions and regulations for content providers who alter facial and voice data, the country’s latest effort to combat deepfakes, or videos and other visual technologies that have been altered in order to disseminate false accusations and spread misinformation. The guidelines, which are intended to regulate technology [...]

Senator Cory Booker along with Congresswomen Jan Schakowsky and Anna G. Eshoo Tuesday introduced the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act to prohibit the use of personal data by advertising networks and facilitators for targeted advertising, except for broad location targeting to a known place, such as a municipality. Data about the individual or connected devices such [...]

The city of Columbus, Ohio, Thursday reported that it had struck an agreement to pay $5.75 million to 32 plaintiffs who claimed that members of the city’s police division injured them and violated their constitutional rights during social justice protests in the summer of 2020. Following the killing of George Floyd last year, the plaintiffs were [...]

The Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), Italy’s competition authority, announced Thursday that it fined Amazon € 1,128 billion ($1.28 billion) for abusing its dominating market position and harming competitors in the e-commerce logistics industry. The AGCM said that Amazon provides merchants who use its logistics service, Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), with advantages [...]

The New Zealand Parliament passed legislation Thursday that will allow people to amend the gender identity on their birth certificates. The country first allowed self-identification on birth certificates in 2018 but required applicants to prove they underwent medical treatment to align their sex and gender identities. The Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2017, [...]

Chile legalized same-sex marriage on Tuesday as societal norms in the predominantly Catholic country shift. The bill was first introduced in Congress in 2017. Chile’s Congress passed the bill with majorities in both chambers, making it the eighth Latin American country and the thirty-first worldwide to allow same-sex marriage. After a decade-long legal battle, the [...]

The US Federal Trade Commission Thursday sued to block Nvidia Corp’s $40 billion acquisition of Arm from SoftBank on antitrust grounds. The FTC said the proposed vertical deal would give one of the largest chip companies control over computing technology and designs that competitors rely on to develop their own competing chips. Arm is a [...]

Five major publishing companies have filed a lawsuit against Shopify over pirated learning materials like PDFs of ebooks and test materials. Macmillan Learning, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, McGraw Hill and Pearson Education allege that the e-commerce platform failed to remove listings and stores that violate each publishers’ trademarks and copyrights. Their complaint, filed Wednesday in the US [...]

The Bombay High Court Wednesday granted bail to lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj, after four years of imprisonment for allegedly attempting to wage war against the government of India and the government of Maharashtra. The case concerns allegedly provocative comments delivered at the Elgaar Parishad conclave in December 2017 which was celebrating the victory of the Mahar [...]