An anonymous reader shares a report: San Francisco-based AI chatbot maker, Replika -- which operates a freemium 'virtual friendship' service based on customizable digital avatars whose "personalized" responses are powered by artificial intelligence (and designed, per its pitch, to make human users feel better) -- has been ordered by Italy's privacy watchdog to stop processing local users' data. The Garante said it's concerned Replika's chatbot technology poses risks to minors -- and also that the company lacks a proper legal basis for processing children's data under the EU's data protection rules.

Additionally, the regulator is worried about the risk the AI chatbots could pose to emotionally vulnerable people. It's also accusing Luka, the developer behind the Replika app, of failing to fulfil regional legal requirements to clearly convey how it's using people's data. The order to stop processing Italians' data is effective immediately. In a press release announcing its intervention, the watchdog said: "The AI-powered chatbot, which generates a 'virtual friend' using text and video interfaces, will not be able to process [the] personal data of Italian users for the time being. A provisional limitation on data processing was imposed by the Italian Garante on the U.S.-based company that has developed and operates the app; the limitation will take effect immediately."

Planting more trees could mean fewer people die from increasingly high summer temperatures in cities, a study suggests. The Guardian reports: Increasing the level of tree cover from the European average of 14.9% to 30% can lower the temperature in cities by 0.4C, which could reduce heat-related deaths by 39.5%, according to first-of-its-kind modeling of 93 European cities by an international team of researchers. [...] The researchers used mortality data to estimate the potential reduction in deaths from lower temperatures as a result of increased tree coverage. Using data from 2015 they estimated that out of the 6,700 premature deaths that year attributed to higher urban temperatures, 2,644 could have been prevented had tree cover been increased.

The cities most likely to benefit from the increase in tree coverage are in south and eastern Europe, where summer temperatures are highest and tree coverage tends to be lower. In Cluj-Napoca in Romania -- which had the highest number of premature deaths due to heat in 2015, at 32 per 100,000 people -- tree coverage is just 7%. In Lisbon, Portugal it is as low as 3.6% and in Barcelona its 8.4%. That compares with 15.5% in London and 34% in Oslo. Study co-author Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said the team picked 30% as that is a target that many cities are currently working towards.

He said there was no need for buildings to be razed and replaced with parks, since there is enough space to plant more trees in all the cities the team looked at. He praised initiatives such as the EU's 3 billion trees plan, and the UK government's proposal to ensure every home is within a 15-minute walk from green space, though he noted that policymakers must ensure trees are evenly distributed between richer and poor neighborhoods. He added that cities which are "too car-dominated" should consider replacing asphalt roads, which absorb heat, with trees. Planting more trees in cities should be prioritized because it brings a huge range of health benefits beyond reducing heat-related deaths, he added, including reducing cardiovascular disease, dementia and poor mental health. The study has been published in the journal The Lancet.

An anonymous reader shares a report: 'Astroturfing' and other non-transparent lobbying tactics used to target digital policymakers in the European Union in recent years -- including during a blitz of spending aimed at influencing major new pan-EU rules like the Digital Services Act (DSA) -- have inspired a group of MEPs and NGOs to fight back by launching a hotline for reporting attempts at indirectly influencing the bloc's tech policy agenda. The new tips line, which was first reported by the Guardian, is being called LobbyLeaks.

The office of one of the MEPs co-leading the effort, Paul Tang of the S&D Group, said the idea is to gather data on underhand lobbying efforts that may be targeting the EU's digital policymaking -- such as the use of third party 'industry associations' or consultancies without clear disclosures, or even academics being quietly funded to author favorable research -- in order that they can be studied and called out. They also want to ensure EU lawmakers are better informed about the myriad ways tech giants may be seeking to influence them as they work on shaping the rules platform giants will have to play by.

As nations around the world scramble to secure crucial semiconductor supply chains over fears about relations with China, the U.K. is falling behind. From a report: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the world's heavy reliance on Taiwan and China for the most advanced chips, which power everything from iPhones to advanced weapons. For the past two years, and amid mounting fears China could kick off a new global security crisis by invading Taiwan, Britain's government has been readying a plan to diversify supply chains for key components and boost domestic production. Yet according to people close to the strategy, the U.K.'s still-unseen plan -- which missed its publication deadline last fall -- has suffered from internal disconnect and government disarray, setting the country behind its global allies in a crucial race to become more self-reliant.

A lack of experience and joined-up policy-making in Whitehall, a period of intense political upheaval in Downing Street, and new U.S. controls on the export of advanced chips to China, have collectively stymied the U.K.'s efforts to develop its own coherent plan. The way the strategy has been developed so far "is a mistake," said a former senior Downing Street official. During the pandemic, demand for semiconductors outstripped supply as consumers flocked to sort their home working setups. That led to major chip shortages -- soon compounded by China's tough "zero-COVID" policy. Since a semiconductor fabrication plant is so technologically complex -- a single laser in a chip lithography system of German firm Trumpf has 457,000 component parts -- concentrating manufacturing in a few companies helped the industry innovate in the past. But everything changed when COVID-19 struck.

AmiMoJo writes: Wind and solar supplied more of the EU's electricity than any other power source for the first time ever in 2022, new analysis finds. They together provided a record one-fifth of the EU's electricity in 2022 -- a larger share than gas or nuclear, according to a report by the climate thinktank Ember. Record additions of new wind and solar in 2022 helped Europe survive a 'triple crisis' created by restrictions on Russian gas supplies, a dip in hydro caused by drought and unexpected nuclear outages, the analysis says.

Around 83% of the dip in hydro and nuclear power was met by wind and solar -- and falling electricity demand. The rest was met by coal, which grew at a slower pace than some had expected amid a drop in fossil fuel supplies from Russia. Solar generation across the EU rose by a record 24% in 2022, helping to avoid --10bn Euro in gas costs, according to the findings. Some 20 EU nations sourced a record share of their power from solar, including the Netherlands, Spain and Germany. Wind and solar growth is expected to continue this year, while hydro and nuclear generation is likely to recover. As a result, fossil fuel power generation could drop by an unprecedented 20% in 2023 -- double the previous record observed in 2020, the analysis projects.

The European Union is weighing a proposal to make technology companies that use the most bandwidth, like Netflix and Alphabet, to help pay for the next generation of internet infrastructure, according to a draft document seen by Bloomberg. From the report: The suggestions are part of a "fair-share" vision from the EU's executive arm that could require large tech businesses, which provide streaming videos and other data-heavy services, to help pay for the traffic they generate.

The draft document, which is part of a consultation with the industry, suggested firms might contribute to a fund to offset the cost of building 5G mobile networks and fiber infrastructure, as well as the creation of a mandatory system of direct payments from tech giants to telecom operators. The commission also asked companies whether there should be a threshold that would qualify a company to be a "large traffic generator," the document showed. That could be similar to the European governing body's rules designating some tech companies "gatekeepers" and "very large online platforms" in its recent competition and online content rules.

The United States and European Union on Friday announced an agreement to speed up and enhance the use of artificial intelligence to improve agriculture, healthcare, emergency response, climate forecasting and the electric grid. Reuters reports: A senior U.S. administration official, discussing the initiative shortly before the official announcement, called it the first sweeping AI agreement between the United States and Europe. Previously, agreements on the issue had been limited to specific areas such as enhancing privacy, the official said. AI modeling, which refers to machine-learning algorithms that use data to make logical decisions, could be used to improve the speed and efficiency of government operations and services.

"The magic here is in building joint models (while) leaving data where it is," the senior administration official said. "The U.S. data stays in the U.S. and European data stays there, but we can build a model that talks to the European and the U.S. data because the more data and the more diverse data, the better the model." The initiative will give governments greater access to more detailed and data-rich AI models, leading to more efficient emergency responses and electric grid management, and other benefits, the administration official said. The partnership is currently between just the White House and the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-member European Union. The senior administration official said other countries will be invited to join in the coming months.

A small asteroid is flying very close to Earth on Thursday night, less than a week after astronomers discovered the object. The New York Times reports: The asteroid, named 2023 BU, was scheduled to pass over the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. Eastern time. The asteroid is fairly small -- less than 30 feet across, about the size of a truck -- and will be best visible in the skies to the west of southern Chile. For space watchers unable to view 2023 BU firsthand, the Virtual Telescope Project will be broadcasting the event on its website and YouTube channel. The asteroid will not hit Earth but will make one of the closest approaches ever by such an object, hurtling past Earth at just 2,200 miles above its surface, according to a news release from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This encounter puts the asteroid "well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites," the statement noted, but the asteroid is not on track to hit any.

2023 BU was unknown to NASA, or anyone, until last Saturday. Gennadiy Borisov, an amateur astronomer in Crimea, noticed the asteroid from the MARGO Observatory, a setup of telescopes that he has used to discover other interstellar objects. Astronomers then determined 2023 BU's orbit around the sun and impending trip past Earth using data from the Minor Planet Center, a project sanctioned by the International Astronomical Union. It publishes positions of newly found space objects, including comets and satellites, from information of several observatories worldwide.

The EU's proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which aims to "bolster cybersecurity rules to ensure more secure hardware and software products," could have severe unintended consequences for open source software, according to leaders in the open source community. From a report: The proposed Act can be described as CE marking for software products and has four specific objectives. One is to require manufacturers to improve the security of products with digital elements "throughout the whole life cycle." Second is to offer a "coherent cybersecurity framework" by which to measure compliance. Third is to improve the transparency of digital security in products, and fourth is to enable customers to "use products with digital elements securely."

The draft legislation includes an impact assessment that says "for software developers and hardware manufacturers, it will increase the direct compliance costs for new cybersecurity requirements, conformity assessment, documentation and reporting obligations." This extra cost is part of a total cost of compliance, including the burden on businesses and public authorities, estimated at EUR 29 billion ($31.54 billion), and consequent higher prices for consumers. However, the legislators foresee a cost reduction from security incidents estimated at EUR 180 to 290 billion annually. The question is though: how can free software developers afford the cost of compliance, when lack of funding is already a critical issue for many projects? Mike Milinkovich, director of the Eclipse Foundation, said it is "deeply concerned that the CRA could fundamentally alter the social contract which underpins the entire open source ecosystem: open source software provided for free, for any purpose, which can be modified and further distributed for free, but without warranty or liability to the authors, contributors, or open source distributors. Legally altering this arrangement through legislation can reasonably be expected to cause unintended consequences to the innovation economy in Europe."

European Commission: Have you ever struggled to understand whether you were buying directly from Google or from a different brand, or had difficulty finding information about final costs? In order to further align its practices with EU law -- mainly on lack of transparency and clear information to consumers -- Google has committed to introduce changes in several of its products and services. Following a dialogue started in 2021 with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC), coordinated by the European Commission and led by the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets and the Belgian Directorate-General for Economic Inspection, Google has agreed to address issues raised by the authorities and to introduce changes in Google Store, Google Play Store, Google Hotels and Google Flights to ensure compliance with EU consumer rules.

Following the dialogue, Google has committed to limit its capacity to make unilateral changes related to orders when it comes to price or cancellations, and to create an email address whose use is reserved to consumer protection authorities, so that they can report and request the quick removal of illegal content. Moreover, Google agreed to introduce a series of changes to its practices, such as:

Google Flights and Google Hotels:
1. Make clear to consumers whether they contract directly with Google or whether it is simply acting as an intermediary;
2. Clarify the price used as a reference when discounts are advertised on the platform, as well as the fact that reviews are not verified on Google Hotels;
3. Accept the same transparency commitments as other big accommodation platforms as regards the way it presents information to consumers, for example, on prices or availability.

Google Play Store and Google Store:
1. Provide clear pre-contractual information on delivery costs, right of withdrawal and availability of repair or replacement options. Furthermore, Google will facilitate also information on the company (e.g. legal name and address) and direct and effective contact points (e.g. a live telephone agent);
2. Clarify how to browse different country versions of the Google Play Store and inform developers about their obligations under the Geo-blocking Regulation to make their apps accessible EU-wide, as well as enable consumers to use means of payment from any EU country.

European Union antitrust enforcers are planning to open an antitrust probe into Microsoft over its video and messaging service Teams, POLITICO reported Wednesday. From the report: An investigation based on a 2020 complaint from Slack would see Microsoft face formal EU scrutiny again, more than a decade after it ended a long-running antitrust dispute over how it misused its position as a powerful software supplier to push new products and services. Officials are focusing on allegations that Microsoft unfairly ties Microsoft Teams and other software with its widely-used Office suite. The European Commission plans to escalate the probe quickly and is preparing a statement of objections laying out competition problems with the company's behavior, two people said. In recent weeks it sent requests to rivals and customers over what evidence it plans to use, they said. Such 'access to file' requests are often a prelude to sending objections after a formal investigation has been launched.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: The European Union's digital policy chief warned TikTok's boss Thursday that the social media app will have to fall in line with tough new rules for online platforms set to take effect later this year. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton held a video call with Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned video sharing app that's coming under increasing scrutiny from Western authorities over fears about data privacy, cybersecurity and misinformation. The two discussed the company's plans to comply with the bloc's Digital Services Act, which is set to take effect for the biggest online companies in September. The act is a set of sweeping rules that will require platforms to reduce harmful online content and combat online risks.

"With younger audiences comes greater responsibility," Breton said, according to a readout of the call. "It is not acceptable that behind seemingly fun and harmless features, it takes users seconds to access harmful and sometimes even life-threatening content." Breton added that, with millions of young users in Europe, TikTok has a "special responsibility" to ensure its content is safe. [...] Breton said he is also concerned about allegations TikTok is spying on journalists and transferring reams of personal user data outside of Europe, in violation of the 27-country bloc's strict privacy rules.

Bretaon said he "explicitly conveyed" to Shou that TikTok needs to "step up efforts to comply" with EU rules on data protection, copyright as well as the Digital Services At, which includes provisions for heavy fines or even a ban from the EU for repeat offenses that threaten the people's lives or safety. "We will not hesitate to adopt the full scope of sanctions to protect our citizens if audits do not show full compliance," he said.

Music streaming service Spotify, along with other media firms such as Deezer, urged the European Commission to take action against Apple for anticompetitive and unfair practices, in a joint industry letter on Wednesday. From a report: The letter, addressed to the European Union antitrust regulator's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, demanded the Commission to act fast for the welfare of European consumers. Spotify has for years accused Apple of abusing its market position using its App Store rules to stifle competition. It has previously submitted antitrust complaints against Apple in various countries, alleging the 30% charge Apple requires developers to pay on its App Store has forced Spotify to "artificially inflate" its own prices. "We are writing to you to call for swift and decisive action by the European Commission against anticompetitive and unfair practices by certain global digital gatekeepers, and Apple in particular," read the letter, which was signed by chief executives of media firms Schibsted, Proton and Basecamp.

Microsoft is likely to receive an EU antitrust warning about its $69 billion bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard, Reuters reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter, that could pose another challenge to completing the deal. From the report: The European Commission is readying a charge sheet known as a statement of objections setting out its concerns about the deal which will be sent to Microsoft in the coming weeks, the people said. The EU antitrust watchdog, which has set an April 11 deadline for its decision on the deal, declined to comment.

AmiMoJo writes: Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has signed a new law that legalizes piracy of movies, music, TV shows and software owned by rightsholders from 'unfriendly countries'. The law also allows goods protected by intellectual property law to be imported from any country without obtaining permission from rightsholders.

Lukashenko's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to new sanctions being imposed by the EU, U.S. and other countries. In common with Russia, Belarus relies on intellectual property owned by foreign rightsholders that are currently unable or unwilling to supply and/or license it. So, to ensure legal access to pirated movies, music, TV shows and software, the government drafted a new law to restrict intellectual property rights.

"France's data protection authority, CNIL, fined Apple €8 million (about $8.5 million) Wednesday," reports Gizmodo, "for illegally harvesting iPhone owners' data for targeted ads without proper consent." It's an unusual sanction for the iPhone maker, which has faced fewer legal penalties over privacy than its Big Tech competitors. Apple makes privacy a selling point for its devices, plastering "Privacy. That's iPhone." across 40-foot billboards across the world.... Apple failed to "obtain the consent of French iPhone users (iOS 14.6 version) before depositing and/or writing identifiers used for advertising purposes on their terminals," the CNIL said in a statement. The CNIL's fine calls out the search ads in Apple's App Store, specifically. A French court fined the company over $1 million in December over its commercial practices related to the App Store....

With iPhones running iOS 14.6 and below, Apple's Personalized Advertising privacy setting was turned on by default, leaving users to seek out the control on their own if they wanted to protect their information. That violates EU privacy law, according to the CNIL.... The newer versions of the iPhone operating system corrected the problem, presenting users with a prompt before the advertising data was collected. Gizmodo also notes this response from an Apple spokesperson. "We are disappointed with this decision given the CNIL has previously recognized that how we serve search ads in the App Store prioritizes user privacy, and we will appeal. Apple Search Ads goes further than any other digital advertising platform we are aware of by providing users with a clear choice as to whether or not they would like personalized ads."

Gizmodo calls France's fine "a signal that Apple may face a less friendly regulatory future in Europe."

Meta is kicking off the New Year with more privacy fines and corrective orders hitting its business in Europe. The latest swathe of enforcement relates to EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) complaints over the legal basis it claims to run behavioral ads. From a report: The Facebook owner's lead data protection watchdog in the region, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), announced today that it's adopted final decisions on two of these long-running enquiries -- against Meta owned social networking site, Facebook, and social photo sharing service, Instagram. The DPC's press release today announces financial penalties of ~$223 million for Facebook and ~$191 million for Instagram -- and confirms the European Data Protection Board (EDPB)'s binding decision last month on these complaints that contractual necessity is not an appropriate basis for processing personal data for behavioral ads.

These new sanctions add to a pile of privacy fines for Meta in Europe last year -- including a $281 million penalty for a Facebook data-scraping breach; $429 million for an Instagram violation of children's privacy; $18 million for several historical Facebook data breaches; and a $63.6 million penalty over Facebook cookie consent violations -- making for a total of $792 million in (publicly disclosed) EU data protection and privacy fines handed down to the adtech giant in 2022. But now, in the first few days of 2023, Meta has landed financial penalties worth more than half last year's regional total -- and more sanctions could be coming shortly.

A group representing internet service providers across Europe said on Tuesday that a proposal to make Big Tech companies pay towards telecom operators' network costs could create systemic weakness in critical infrastructure. From a report: Telecom operators have been pushing the European Union to implement new laws that would see U.S. tech firms like Alphabet's Google, Meta's Facebook, and Netflix bear some of the costs of Europe's telecoms network, arguing that they drive much of the region's internet traffic.

In September, European Commission's industry chief Thierry Breton said he would launch a consultation on so-called "fair share" payments in early 2023, before proposing legislation. Now, the European Internet Exchange Association said the proposals risked reducing the quality of service for internet users across Europe, and could "accidentally create new systemic weaknesses" in critical infrastructure, in a letter addressed to the European Commission's industry chief Thierry Breton and the Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager.

Google has told a tribunal in India that the country's antitrust investigators copied parts of a European ruling against the U.S. firm for abusing the market dominance of its Android operating system, arguing the decision be quashed, legal papers show. From a report: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) in October fined Alphabet's Google $161 million for exploiting its dominant position in markets such as online search and the Android app store, and asked it to change restrictions imposed on smartphone makers related to pre-installing apps.

In its filing to an Indian appeals tribunal, Google argues the CCI's investigation unit "copy-pasted extensively from a European Commission decision, deploying evidence from Europe that was not examined in India." "There are more than 50 instances of copypasting," in some cases "word-for-word," and the watchdog erroneously dismissed the issue, Google said in its filing which is not public but has been reviewed by Reuters. "The Commission failed to conduct an impartial, balanced, and legally sound investigation ... Google's mobile app distribution practices are pro-competitive and not unfair/ exclusionary."

Google is developing a free moderation tool that smaller websites can use to identify and remove terrorist material, as new legislation in the UK and the EU compels Internet companies to do more to tackle illegal content. From a report: The software is being developed in partnership with the search giant's research and development unit Jigsaw and Tech Against Terrorism, a UN-backed initiative that helps tech companies police online terrorism. "There are a lot of websites that just don't have any people to do the enforcement. It is a really labor-intensive thing to even build the algorithms [and] then you need all those human reviewers," said Yasmin Green, chief executive of Jigsaw. "[Smaller websites] do not want Isis content there, but there is a ton of it all over [them]," she added.

The move comes as Internet companies will be forced to remove extremist content from their platforms or face fines and other penalties under laws such as the Digital Services Act in the EU, which came into force in November, and the UK's Online Safety bill, which is expected to become law this year. The legislation has been pushed by politicians and regulators across Europe who argue that Big Tech groups have not gone far enough to police content online. But the new regulatory regime has led to concerns that smaller start-ups are not equipped to comply and that a lack of resources will limit their ability to compete with larger technology companies.