Verdict on TikTok, Von der Leyen’s promises 

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“Although in 2018 TikTok was indeed a challenger seeking to contest the position of established operators such as Meta and Alphabet, it had rapidly consolidated its position, and even strengthened that position over the following years, despite the launch of competing services such as Reels and Shorts, to the point of reaching, in a short time, half the size, in terms of number of users within the European Union, of Facebook and of Instagram.”

– said the Court of Justice of the EU on ByteDance’s claim that it is not a dominant player.

Story of the week: The EU Court of Justice upheld on Wednesday the European Commission’s decision to designate TikTok’s parent company ByteDance as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act, dismissing all arguments presented by the company. The affirmation by the General Court of ByteDance as a gatekeeper reinforces EU efforts to regulate dominant tech companies. The General Court is a constituent court of the Court of Justice of the EU. Read more.

Don’t miss: Ursula von der Leyen laid out her vision for boosting Europe’s competitiveness in global markets, including implementing existing regulations and new proposals, in her political priorities for the next EU 2024-2029 mandate on Thursday. The Commission will ramp up the enforcement of existing regulations, such as the content moderation-focused Digital Services Act (DSA) and competition-oriented Digital Markets Act (DMA), so that Big Tech “assumes responsibility,” she wrote. Tech took up a large part of the priorities document, compared to its relative absence from previous party manifestos. Read more.

Also this week:

• Von der Leyen vows to tackle social media addiction and cyberbullying of children 
• Cypriot Youtuber MEP voted against von der Leyen following X poll 
• King Charles confirms UK AI bill is coming, but details yet to be figured out 
• EU Commission looks to study DMA interoperability, with an eye to extending requirements to social media
• So close, yet so far: Crypto comes to Brussels
• The clock is ticking on Digital Product Passports across the EU

Before we dive into it, a quick note from the Euractiv team. This is our last newsletter for the summer. We will be back in late August. Don’t worry, we will still be reporting over the quiet period, so don’t forget to check our website and social media.

Artificial Intelligence 

UK’s AI bill. King Charles confirmed that legislation to regulate artificial intelligence is coming under the UK’s new Labour government but stopped short of providing details in his speech at the first Parliament session under the new government on Wednesday. AI regulation in the UK would mean the EU is less alone globally in regulating the technology, although details on the bill are scant and Britain’s approach could differ. In a video on X on Thursday, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology once again confirmed that they are indeed planning to put the UK AI Safety Institute on a statutory footing, indicating that the testing of powerful AI models and sharing of test data will become mandatory.  Read more. 

UK’s antitrust authority investigates Microsoft deal with AI startup. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched on Tuesday a full merger inquiry investigation into Microsoft’s deal with US AI startup Inflection. The authority started to work on the case in April and considers to now have enough evidence to kick start a full investigation. The deadline for the first decision is set for 11 September. The Guardian has more details.

GPT-4o mini. OpenAI announced the launch of GPT-4o mini, a more cost-effective and energy-efficient Artificial Intelligence (AI) model, the company said on Thursday. OpenAI touted it as a safety-first way to make its technology “as broadly accessible as possible.” The smaller model supports text and vision applications currently, with plans to expand to text, image, video, and audio inputs and outputs in the future.

Trump’s AI platform. US presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s allies are drafting a sweeping AI executive order that would launch a series of “Manhattan Projects” to develop military technology and immediately review “unnecessary and burdensome regulations,” according to a Tuesday article by the Washington Post. The Republican Party’s platform already involves repealing President Joe Biden’s executive order, which mandated the testing of powerful AI models, and according to the post, the new framework will instead create “industry-led” agencies “to evaluate AI models and secure systems from foreign adversaries”.

Competition 

PSR and FCA look into digital wallets. The UK’s Payments Systems Regulator (PSR) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are soliciting opinions on the benefits and risks associated with digital wallets, given their rapid adoption among UK consumers. With platforms like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal increasingly prevalent, the regulators aim to understand how these wallets impact users and businesses, according to the FCA’s announcement on Monday.

A Meta-Ray-Ban collab? Meta is in discussions to acquire a minority stake of between 3% to 5% in EssilorLuxottica, the maker of Ray-Ban sunglasses, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. This comes as Meta expands its presence in the smart glasses market, following their collaboration on Ray-Ban-Meta smart eyewear. The potential investment would value EssilorLuxottica at approximately €4.5 billion

Google aims for big acquisition. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Wiz, cybersecurity startup, for around $23 billion. This potential acquisition would mark Google’s largest-ever purchase, surpassing its acquisition of Motorola in 2012, CNN reported on Monday. Talks are ongoing, and the deal’s terms are not yet finalised. 

Cybersecurity 

EU-Ukraine cyber dialogue. On Monday, the EU and Ukraine held their third Cyber Dialogue in Brussels, focusing on deepening cybersecurity cooperation amidst Ukraine’s accession talks and ongoing conflict with Russia. The dialogue aimed to yield concrete operational outcomes ahead of their next meeting in 2025. For the first time, Ukraine also participated in the EU cybersecurity’s annual exercise in June

Disney’s Slack. Disney’s internal Slack messages were leaked online, including discussions about ad campaigns, studio technology and interview candidates, by an anonymous hacking group critical of generative AI technology, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The company said it is investigating the matter

Pinterest hacked? Pinterest, with 518 million users, faces a potential data leak by hacker “Tchao1337,” exposing 60 million rows of user data, including emails, usernames, user IDs, and IP addresses, CybersecurityNews reported on Monday. This leak poses risks like phishing and identity theft. Pinterest has not confirmed the breach.

Data & Privacy 

Digital Product Passports. The EU’s regulation on the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products (ESPR) came into force on Thursday, but the required implementation of Digital Product Passports across sectors by 2030 entails a massive restructuring of data management across supply chains. The idea is that improving information exchange on this data will encourage recycling and foster trust between consumers and businesses in the era of digitalisation. Read more.

Italy investigates Google. The Italian Competition Authority is investigating Google and its parent company Alphabet over potentially misleading and aggressive practices related to user consent for linking services, it announced on Thursday. The investigation focuses on claims that Google’s consent request lacks adequate and clear information, potentially influencing users’ decisions on data use. Concerns include the vague explanation of data combinations across services and the limited options for selective consent. The Authority also suggests Google’s consent methods may unduly influence consumer choices, leading them to agree to data practices they might otherwise reject.

EDPB endorses DPAs role. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) endorsed the role of Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) as Market Surveillance Authorities (MSAs) under the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, in its latest plenary session. This move, according to a post from Wednesday, aims to enhance coordination among regulatory bodies, ensure legal clarity, and strengthen oversight of AI systems across the EU.

Digital Markets Act 

Commission to study DMA interoperability. The European Commission aims to study interoperability provisions in the EU’s digital competition regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), according to a published tender. The study, commissioned by the Commission’s Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content, and Technology (DG CONNECT), will be used to identify technical challenges and solutions for achieving effective interoperability under the DMA, with a review planned by May 2026, says the tender. Read more. 

eGovernance

So close, yet so far. While the European Union remain largely oblivious to blockchain technology, despite its potential to plug gaps in the bloc’s digital ambitions, a large-scale crypto conference took place in Brussels last week, the first of its kind. Proponents of blockchain say that many of the solutions offered by crypto and blockchain – the technology that underpins it- can solve the problems the EU is grappling with. Diffusion of this knowledge remains low. Read more.

Industrial Strategy 

China presses on. At a top-level meeting on Thursday, Communist Party leaders affirmed China’s push to advance its tech prowess and boost its national security, the AP reported based on an official communique from the meeting. The official statement was scant on details.  

Media 

YouTuber MEP voted against VDL. Cypriot YouTuber-turned-MEP Fidias Panayiotou voted against Ursula von der Leyen’s re-appointment as European Commission President after conducting an X poll. After sweeping into the European Parliament via the EU elections in June, MEP Fidias Panayiotou took to social media to guide his political platform. Around 85% of the 120,961 responders to his poll said that he should vote against her nomination on Thursday in the parliament plenary in Strasbourg. The MEP posted a video on Thursday on X, showing that kept his promise and voted against von der Leyen, who was re-elected as president with 401 votes in favour and 284 against. Read more.

Platforms 

Commission to tackle addictive design and cyberbullying. Von der Leyen vowed to fight both cyberbullying and addictive design in a speech to the European Parliament ahead of her confirmation vote on Thursday. MEPs from the Greens and the liberal Renew Europe initiated a resolution calling for an addictive design policy in 2023, while the centre-right European People’s Party, von der Leyen’s political family, called for measures to curb cyberbullying in late June draft priorities seen by Euractiv. Von der Leyen vowed to tackle both issues. Read more.

France on parental control. On Saturday, France enforced a new measure that mandates smartphone sellers to suggest a parental control software on all sold devices. Former digital minister and Europe minister Jean-Noël Barrot called this “a great step ahead to help parents regulate screen use and protect kids from digital dangers.”

Microsoft chaos. Microsoft users worldwide, including banks and airlines, reported widespread outages on Friday. Despite Microsoft’s claims of gradually fixing the issue affecting Microsoft 365 apps and services, the exact cause and scale of the outage remained unclear. Microsoft said was rerouting impacted traffic to improve service but did not provide further details, ABC News reported on Friday. Windows PCs encountered a “blue screen of death” error, rendering them unusable, also causing troubles worldwide, The Independent reported. 

Telecoms

Google tried to derail deal between European cloud lobby and Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, citing confidential documents, Google offered CISPE, a European cloud lobby, a package of €470 million, boosted by €6 million from Amazon, to continue the antitrust complaint against Microsoft. CISPE didn’t take the bait and said in a press release that the settlement between CISPE and Microsoft does not include either Google or Amazon.

Microsoft on cloud nine. French cloud provider OVHcloud reached a deal with Microsoft this week, so the French company is dropping its 2021 antitrust complaint against the tech giant, a spokesperson confirmed to Euractiv. This decision, along with the settlement of CISPE antitrust complaint, reduces the risk of Microsoft facing an EU probe.  

Transatlantic Ties 

Reynders in Washington. On Friday, Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders will visit Washington DC to conduct the first review of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which was affirmed in 2023 and ensures that US data protection levels for EU data transfers are comparable to those in the EU. The review will culminate in a report later this year. Reynders will deliver opening remarks with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, followed by a bilateral meeting and a joint press statement. He will also meet with US Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

What else we’re reading this week: 

The Paris Olympics Will Show Us the Future of Sports on TV (Wired) 

The Data That Powers A.I. Is Disappearing Fast (The New York Times) 

Elon Musk is now a villain in Joe Biden’s presidential campaign (TechCrunch) 

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

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