By June 30th, Google writes, it will lower most app store fees in the US, UK, and European Economic Area to 20 percent or less, down from 30 percent. By the end of the year, it will launch a “Registered App Stores” program outside of the US, so that you can download and install third-party app stores (like the Epic Games Store) from the web without the friction that Google erected previously.
https://www.theverge.com/policy/889252/google-app-store-fee-reduction-20-percent-epic-v-google
Discord stressed it would meet any specific legal obligations it has for age verification of users, and that age verification will be part of the platform in the future. However, the platform said it was now developing "more verification options" for users that would not require facial or ID scans. One such option in development is credit card verification.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgv0yg4n9lo
Google will not have to sell its Chrome web browser but must share information with competitors, a US federal judge has ordered. The remedies decided by District Judge Amit Mehta have emerged after a years-long court battle over Google's dominance in online search. The case centred around Google's position as the default search engine on a range of its own products such as Android and Chrome as well as others made by the likes of Apple. The US Department of Justice had demanded that Google sell Chrome – Tuesday's decision means the tech giant can keep it but it will be barred from having exclusive contracts and must share search data with rivals.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8zdrenm1zo
The defunct analytics company Flurry agreed to pay $3.5 million to resolve a class action lawsuit claiming it improperly harvested data from a widely used period tracking app. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit said data they provided to the app, Flo Health, was obtained by Flurry, the ad analytics company AppsFlyer, Meta and Google.
https://therecord.media/flurry-pays-harvesting-sexual-data
Itch.io management posted about the domain takedown on social media overnight, complaining of a chain of events that started because "Funko of 'Funko Pop'… use some trash 'AI Powered' Brand Protection Software called BrandShield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain," the post said.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/12/itch-io-platform-briefly-goes-down-to-ai-driven-anti-phishing-report/
On Sunday, former President Donald Trump posted a collection of memes on Truth Social — the platform owned by his media company — that make it seem like Taylor Swift and her fans are coming out in support of his candidacy. But as new legislation takes effect, these images could have deeper implications about the use of AI-generated images in political campaigns, especially when those images misrepresent a celebrity’s likeness.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/19/could-trumps-ai-generated-taylor-swift-endorsement-be-illegal/
In response to Epic’s news, Apple shared the following statement: Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right to terminate ‘any or all of Epic Games’ wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games’ control at any time and at Apple’s sole discretion.’ In light of Epic’s past and ongoing behavior, Apple chose to exercise that right.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/06/apple-terminates-epic-games-developer-account-calling-it-a-threat-to-the-ios-ecosystem/