Exclusive-Meta says EU antitrust regulators are discriminating against its business model
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Meta Platforms on Friday criticised EU antitrust regulators for moving the goalpost as the U.S. company seeks to comply with an order targeting its pay-or-consent business model.
The tech giant said the European Commission had discriminated against its business model and that it had nevertheless engaged constructively in discussions and introduced extensive changes.
"We are confident that the range of choices we offer people in the EU doesn't just comply with what the EU's rules require - it goes well beyond them," a Meta spokesperson said.
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The Hill
42 minutes ago
- The Hill
On defense, Canada is turning away from the US and toward Europe
BANFF, ALBERTA — Americans continue to flock here and to nearby Lake Louise. Canadians continue to welcome them warmly. There is no sign of the tense relationship that continues to prevail between Ottawa and Washington. But Canada is pursuing a new international path that may mark a tectonic shift in its long-standing relationship with the U.S. Although he has become more muted about annexing Canada to the U.S., President Trump has not entirely dropped the idea. And Canada's response has been to move increasingly closer to Europe in general, and to the European Union in particular. In March, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a review of Canada's purchase of F-35 fighters. Ottawa was originally going to buy 88 aircraft, but with costs having grown by about 50 percent, Carney decided not to commit to more than the 16 planes that Canada had already funded. The review is slated to be completed later this summer; it will consider less costly alternatives to the F-35, most notably Sweden's Gripen. This week, Canada took another step closer to Europe. On the day before the NATO Summit at The Hague, Carney signed an agreement with the EU that will enable Canada to participate in its expanded multi-billion euro ReArm Europe defense spending program. Specifically, Brussels and Ottawa will work to conclude a bilateral agreement to let Canada participate in the new €150 billion facility that will allow Ottawa to take part in joint procurement, and possibly to be eligible for loans to support defense purchase. The two sides will also work to establish an 'administrative arrangement between Canada and the European Defense Agency.' The agreement also expands upon previous arrangements between Canada and the EU, including Canada's 2005 Framework Participation Agreement with the EU, the 2018 Security of Information Agreement, its participation in the EU Common Security and Defense Policy, as well as the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation Projects on Military Mobility, which enables Canadian forces to move across the territory of EU member states. Finally, the latest agreement also addresses issues that the Trump administration treats as lower priority, if it considers them at all. These include long-term support for Ukraine, 'protection of vulnerable populations and the provision of humanitarian assistance in conflict situations,' 'close collaboration to ensure gender equality [as a] political and security priority' and 'addressing the security implications of climate-related impact on infrastructure, equipment, training and readiness, operations, policy, and planning.' Canada still has some ways to go before its defense commitments can be taken seriously. Like its NATO partners, Canada signed onto the NATO Summit's Communique and pledged to spend 3.5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, with an additional 1.5 percent on activities that could be considered defense-related. These include undertakings to protect 'critical infrastructure, defend … networks, ensure … civilian preparedness and resilience, unleash innovation, and strengthen [the] defense industrial base' — and to do all of the foregoing by 2035. However, that will be an exceedingly steep climb. Canada is one of NATO's laggards with respect to defense spending; Ottawa commits only 1.37 percent of its GDP to defense. The Carney government did announce that Canada would reach NATO's previous target of 2 percent of GDP this year, five years ahead of its previous schedule. Yet budget constraints could delay achieving that goal by as much as three years and those constraints will further complicate Canada's chances of achieving the 5 percent target seven years later. In any event, it is becoming increasingly likely that much of Ottawa's additional defense spending, at whatever percentage of GDP, may well be directed away from the U.S. Canada appears to have reached a turning point in its defense relationship with Washington. Its turn to Europe may well prove to be permanent, even if Trump were to drop all thought of absorbing Canada into the U.S. Nevertheless, Canada and the U.S. have a fully integrated defense industrial base for both shared procurement and research and development that dates back to the 1956 defense production sharing agreement, the 1963 defense development sharing agreement and several subsequent arrangements. Losing that common base would be a disaster for manufacturers in both countries. It is therefore critical that, whatever the political winds blowing out of Washington and Ottawa, the two countries preserve the long-standing industrial relationship that has served them both so well for more than a half-century. Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.
The Verge
an hour ago
- The Verge
What Meta and Anthropic really won in court
A lot of the future of AI will be settled in court. From publishers to authors to artists to Hollywood conglomerates, the creative industry is picking a big copyright fight over the vast quantities of data used to train AI models — and the ultimate output of those models. (Disclosure: Vox Media, The Verge's parent company, has a technology and content deal with OpenAI.) This week, we got rulings in two early cases, involving groups of authors suing Anthropic and Meta. In both cases, the tech companies won. Sort of. On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay, David, and Jake talk a lot about the twin rulings this week, and whether the AI companies may have won the battle without winning the war. But before we get to all that, there's some other tech news to talk about! We run through the first few days of the Tesla robotaxi rollout and the latest on the Trump Phone, both of which are going about as you'd expect. We talk about the new Fairphone 6 and Titan 2, two fascinating but maybe slightly niche ideas about smartphones. And we talk about Meta's new face computers, one made with Xbox and one made with Oakley. Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Pocket Casts | More After that, The Verge's Adi Robertson joins the show to dig into the AI cases. We talk through the ways the plaintiffs failed to make the right arguments, and why the judges in both cases appear desperate for someone to come in and do better. We talk about the difference between buying books and pirating them, between inputs and outputs, and the actual creative risks that come from flooding the internet with AI slop. Finally, in the lightning round, it's time for another round of Brendan Carr is a Dummy, some debatably huge news about HDMI, and the end of the Blue Screen of Death. The blue-ness of it, at least. If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with the gadgets of the week: And in AI lawsuit news: And in the lightning round:
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
German data protection official wants Apple, Google to remove DeepSeek from the country's app stores
A German data protection official has reported Chinese AI app DeepSeek to Apple and Google, saying the app transfers users' information to China illegally. Meike Kamp, Berlin's Commissioner for data protection and freedom of information, told the companies that DeepSeek did not provide 'convincing evidence' that users' data was protected as required by EU laws. 'Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies,' Kamp said, adding that the two tech firms must now review the report and decide whether to remove the app. Kamp said that her office had asked DeepSeek to comply with EU laws for transferring data outside the bloc or pull its app from the country, but the Chinese company did not do so. Italy earlier this year banned DeepSeek from app stores in the country, citing similar data protection concerns. Notably, two key details about DeepSeek that consumer privacy advocate groups in the EU highlighted are that the service is made in and operates out of China. Per its privacy policy, this includes the information and data that DeepSeek collects and stores, which is also housed in its home country. Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment. This story was corrected to clarify that Berlin's data protection commissioner reported DeepSeek to the companies.
