Responding to a three-year-old complaint, Microsoft today said that it would fix its unfair licensing terms in the EU. From a report: "We recognize the importance of a competitive environment in the European cloud provider market, in which smaller competitors can thrive," a new post to the Microsoft Corporate Blogs notes. "It is therefore critical for us to remain mindful of our responsibilities as a major technology company." In 2019, several Microsoft customers in the EU complained that the software giant was making it prohibitively expensive to run Windows and Office workloads on non-Azure cloud platforms like AWS and Google Cloud, triggering inquiries from EU antitrust regulators. Microsoft immediately responded that the complaints were "valid," but it did nothing to address them in any material way.

In May 2022, Microsoft finally came up with a response, announcing that it would make it less expensive for customers to run Microsoft software like Windows, Windows Server, Office, and SQL Server on non-Microsoft cloud platforms in the EU. But it wasn't until today that the software giant announced the details and timing of this plan. Now, Microsoft says that it will implement "major revisions and upgrades to its outsourcing and hosting terms" that go into effect on October 1, 2022. It will be easier and more cost-effective for customers to use Microsoft software on competing cloud platforms, it says, and for its partners to build hosted desktop and server solutions that meet their customers' needs.

Trademark filings suggest that Apple may be staking claim to potential names for its highly anticipated mixed-reality headset, part of the tech giant's push into its first new product category in years. From a report: Applications were filed in the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Uruguay for the names "Reality One," "Reality Pro" and "Reality Processor." Though Apple itself didn't make the filings, they follow a pattern that the iPhone maker has used in the past -- including relying on law firms that the company has previously enlisted to lock down brands. Apple's headset is expected to combine virtual and augmented reality technology and vault the company into closer competition with Meta Platforms, the leading provider of VR gear. It's been seven years since the company last went after a new hardware category with the Apple Watch.

"Facebook's corporate parent has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging the world's largest social network service allowed millions of its users' personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica," reports the Associated Press: Terms of the settlement reached by Meta Platforms, the holding company for Facebook and Instagram, weren't disclosed in court documents filed late Friday. The filing in San Francisco federal court requested a 60-day stay of the action while lawyers finalize the settlement. That timeline suggested further details could be disclosed by late October.

The accord was reached just a few weeks before a Sept. 20 deadline for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his long-time chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, to submit to depositions during the final phases of pre-trial evidence gathering, according to court documents... The lawsuit, which had been seeking to be certified as a class action representing Facebook users, had asserted the privacy breach proved Facebook is a "data broker and surveillance firm," as well as a social network.
Some background from UPI: The Facebook users sued the platform in June 2018, accusing it of violating privacy rules when it shared personal data with Cambridge Analytica and other third parties.... In March 2018, whistleblower and Cambridge Analytica co-founder Christopher Wylie revealed the data mining company was holding onto Facebook user data without the users' consent even after Facebook told the company to delete it.
Reuters describes Cambridge Analytica as "the now-defunct British political consultancy."

Politico reports that now lawyers for both Facebook and the plaintiffs have "asked the judge to put the lawsuit on hold for 60 days to allow the parties to 'finalize a written settlement agreement' and present it for preliminary approval by the court."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Google has breached a European Union court ruling by sending unsolicited advertising emails directly to the inbox of Gmail users, Austrian advocacy group noyb.eu said on Wednesday in a complaint filed with France's data protection watchdog. The Alphabet unit, whose revenues mainly come from online advertising, should ask Gmail users for their prior consent before sending them any direct marketing emails, noyb.eu said, citing a 2021 decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE).

While Google's ad emails may look like normal ones, they include the word "Ad" in green letters on the left-hand side, below the subject of the email, noyb.eu said in its complaint. Also, they do not include a date, the advocacy group added. "It's as if the postman was paid to remove the ads from your mailbox and put his own instead," said Romain Robert, program director at noyb.eu, with reference to Gmail's anti-spam filters that put most unsolicited emails in a separate folder. While any CNIL decision would be only applicable in France, it could compel Google to review its practices in the region.

The latest crisis that rocked the Greek government shows the bloc's surveillance problem goes beyond the notorious NSO Group. From a report: The ripple effects of the scandal are reaching the heart of the European Union. Over the past 13 months, it has been revealed that spyware had targeted opposition leaders, journalists, lawyers and activists in France, Spain, Hungary, Poland and even staff within the European Commission, the EU's cabinet-style government, between 2019 and 2021. The bloc has already set up an inquiry into its own use of spyware, but even as the 38-person committee works toward producing a report for early 2023, the number of new scandals is quickly mounting up. What sets the scandal in Greece apart is the company behind the spyware that was used. Until then the surveillance software in every EU scandal could be traced back to one company, the notorious NSO Group. Yet the spyware stalking Koukakis' phone was made by Cytrox, a company founded in the small European nation of North Macedonia and acquired in 2017 by Tal Dilian -- an entrepreneur who achieved notoriety for driving a high-tech surveillance van around the island of Cyprus and showing a Forbes journalist how it could hack into passing people's phones.

In that interview, Dilian said he had acquired Cytrox and absorbed the company into his intelligence company Intellexa, which is now thought to now be based in Greece. The arrival of Cytrox into Europe's ongoing scandal shows the problem is bigger than just the NSO Group. The bloc has a thriving spyware industry of its own. As the NSO Group struggles with intense scrutiny and being blacklisted by the US, its less well-known European rivals are jostling to take its clients, researchers say. Over the past two months, Cytrox is not the only local company to generate headlines for hacking devices within the bloc. In June, Google discovered the Italian spyware vendor RCS Lab was targeting smartphones in Italy and Kazakhstan. Alberto Nobili, RCS' managing director, told WIRED that the company condemns the misuse of its products but declined to comment on whether the cases cited by Google were examples of misuse. "RCS personnel are not exposed, nor participate in any activities conducted by the relevant customers," he says. More recently, in July, spyware made by Austria's DSIRF was detected by Microsoft hacking into law firms, banks, and consultancies in Austria, the UK, and Panama.

The euro has dropped below parity with the U.S. dollar on Monday. According to Reuters, investors fear that "interest-rate hikes in the United States and Europe, aimed at curbing inflation, would weaken the global economy." From the report: Against a basket of currencies, the dollar rose 0.8% to a more than five-week high of 109.02 , not far from the two-decade peak of 109.29 touched in mid-July. The greenback has found support in recent sessions as several Federal Reserve officials reiterated an aggressive monetary tightening stance ahead of the Fed's Jackson Hole, Wyoming, symposium this week. The latest of these officials, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin, on Friday said the "urge" among central bankers was toward faster, front-loaded rate increases.

The euro fell following Russia's announcement late on Friday of a three-day halt to European gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline at the end of this month. Investors worry that the halt could exacerbate an energy crisis that has weighed on the common currency in recent months.

Europe is seriously considering developing space-based solar power to increase its energy independence and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the leader of the European Space Agency said this week. Ars Technica reports: "It will be up to Europe, ESA and its Member States to push the envelope of technology to solve one of the most pressing problems for people on Earth of this generation," said Josef Aschbacher, director general of the space agency, an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states. Previously the space agency commissioned studies from consulting groups based in the United Kingdom and Germany to assess the costs and benefits of developing space-based solar power. ESA published those studies this week in order to provide technical and programmatic information to policymakers in Europe. Aschbacher has been working to build support within Europe for solar energy from space as a key to energy de-carbonization and will present his Solaris Program to the ESA Council in November. This council sets priorities and funding for ESA. Under Aschbacher's plans, development of the solar power system would begin in 2025.

In concept, space-based solar power is fairly straightforward. Satellites orbiting well above Earth's atmosphere collect solar energy and convert it into current; this energy is then beamed back to Earth via microwaves, where they are captured by photovoltaic cells or antennas and converted into electricity for residential or industrial use. The primary benefits of gathering solar power from space, rather than on the ground, is that there is no night or clouds to interfere with collection; and the solar incidence is much higher than at the northern latitudes of the European continent.

The two consulting reports discuss development of the technologies and funding needed to start to bring a space-based power system online. Europe presently consumes about 3,000 TWh of electricity on an annual basis, and the reports describe massive facilities in geostationary orbit that could meet about one-quarter to one-third of that demand. Development and deployment of these systems would cost hundreds of billions of euros. Why so much? Because facilitating space-based solar power would require a constellation of dozens of huge, sunlight-gathering satellites located 36,000 km from Earth. Each of these satellites would have a mass 10 times larger, or more, than that of the International Space Station, which is 450 metric tons and required more than a decade to assemble in low Earth orbit. Launching the components of these satellites would ultimately require hundreds or, more likely, thousands of launches by heavy lift rockets. "Using projected near-term space lift capability, such as SpaceX's Starship, and current launch constraints, delivering one satellite into orbit would take between 4 and 6 years," a report by British firm Frazer-Nash states. "Providing the number of satellites to satisfy the maximum contribution that SBSP could make to the energy mix in 2050 would require a 200-fold increase over current space-lift capacity." Critics of the concept include Elon Musk and physicist Casey Handmer, among others, which take issue with the poor photon to electron to photon conversion efficiency and prohibitively expensive transmission losses, thermal losses, and logistics costs.

atcclears shares a report from ScienceAlert: An intense drought is shrinking rivers across Europe, revealing stones carved centuries ago to give future generations a warning of hard times ahead. The Miami Herald reported that locals said the centuries-old boulders, known as "hunger stones," reappeared last week as rivers in Europe ran dry due to drought conditions. One such stone is on the banks of the Elbe River, which begins in the Czech Republic and flows through Germany. The boulder dates back to 1616 and is etched with a warning in German: "Wenn du mich seehst, dann weine" -- "If you see me, then weep," according to a Google translation of the phrase.

In a 2013 study, a team of Czech researchers wrote that these boulders are "chiseled with the years of hardship and the initials of authors lost to history," adding that the "basic inscriptions warn of the consequences of drought." "It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices and hunger for poor people," researchers wrote. "Before 1900, the following droughts are commemorated on the stone: 1417, 1616, 1707, 1746, 1790, 1800, 1811, 1830, 1842, 1868, 1892, and 1893." These "hydrological landmarks" last surfaced during a 2018 drought, NPR reported. But the current drought Europe is experiencing could be the worst in 500 years, according to Andrea Toreti, a senior researcher at the European Commission's Joint Research Center.

Spain has announced new energy-saving measures, including limits on air conditioning and heating temperatures in public and large commercial buildings, as it becomes the latest European country to seek to reduce its energy consumption and its dependence on Russian oil and gas. From a report: Under a decree that comes into effect in seven days' time and applies to public buildings, shopping centres, cinemas, theatres, rail stations and airports, heating should not be set above 19C (66.2F) and air conditioning should not be set below 27C (80.6F). Doors will need to be closed so as not to waste energy, and lights in shop windows must be switched off after 10pm. The premises in question will be required to display signs or screens that explain the energy-saving initiatives. Although Spain is not as dependent on Russian energy supplies as many other EU countries, it has agreed to a 7-8% reduction in gas use. The measures, which were published in Tuesday's edition of the official state gazette, will remain in force until November 2023. "[This] lays out a series of measures to save energy and use it more efficiently, which are urgent and necessary when it comes to reducing energy consumption in general, and reducing our dependence on energy outside the Spanish economy," the decree said.

France, Italy and Spain are stepping up pressure on the European Commission to come up with legislation that ensures Big Tech firms partly finance telecoms infrastructure in the bloc, a document showed on Monday. This was the first time the three governments have expressed their joint position on the issue. Reuters reports: EU regulators said in May they were analyzing the question of whether tech giants Alphabet's Google, Meta and Netflix should shoulder some of the costs of upgrading telecoms networks. In a joint paper, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, the three governments said the six largest content providers accounted for 55% of internet traffic.

"This generates specific costs for European telecom operators in terms of capacity, at a time they are already hugely investing in the most costly parts of the networks with 5G and Fiber-To-The-Home," the document said. It urged that European telecom networks and large online content providers pay fair shares of network costs. "We call for a legislative proposal ... ensuring all market players contribute to digital infrastructure costs," the document said.

Longtime Slashdot reader HnT shares a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft said on Wednesday that an Austria-based company named DSIRF used multiple Windows and Adobe Reader zero-days to hack organizations located in Europe and Central America. Members of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center, or MSTIC, said they have found Subzero malware infections spread through a variety of methods, including the exploitation of what at the time were Windows and Adobe Reader zero-days, meaning the attackers knew of the vulnerabilities before Microsoft and Adobe did. Targets of the attacks observed to date include law firms, banks, and strategic consultancies in countries such as Austria, the UK, and Panama, although those aren't necessarily the countries in which the DSIRF customers who paid for the attack resided.

"MSTIC has found multiple links between DSIRF and the exploits and malware used in these attacks," Microsoft researchers wrote. "These include command-and-control infrastructure used by the malware directly linking to DSIRF, a DSIRF-associated GitHub account being used in one attack, a code signing certificate issued to DSIRF being used to sign an exploit, and other open source news reports attributing Subzero to DSIRF." Referring to DSIRF using the work KNOTWEED, Microsoft researchers wrote: In May 2022, MSTIC found an Adobe Reader remote code execution (RCE) and a 0-day Windows privilege escalation exploit chain being used in an attack that led to the deployment of Subzero. The exploits were packaged into a PDF document that was sent to the victim via email. Microsoft was not able to acquire the PDF or Adobe Reader RCE portion of the exploit chain, but the victim's Adobe Reader version was released in January 2022, meaning that the exploit used was either a 1-day exploit developed between January and May, or a 0-day exploit. Based on KNOTWEED's extensive use of other 0-days, we assess with medium confidence that the Adobe Reader RCE is a 0-day exploit. The Windows exploit was analyzed by MSRC, found to be a 0-day exploit, and then patched in July 2022 as CVE-2022-22047. Interestingly, there were indications in the Windows exploit code that it was also designed to be used from Chromium-based browsers, although we've seen no evidence of browser-based attacks.

The CVE-2022-22047 vulnerability is related to an issue with activation context caching in the Client Server Run-Time Subsystem (CSRSS) on Windows. At a high level, the vulnerability could enable an attacker to provide a crafted assembly manifest, which would create a malicious activation context in the activation context cache, for an arbitrary process. This cached context is used the next time the process spawned.

CVE-2022-22047 was used in KNOTWEED related attacks for privilege escalation. The vulnerability also provided the ability to escape sandboxes (with some caveats, as discussed below) and achieve system-level code execution. The exploit chain starts with writing a malicious DLL to disk from the sandboxed Adobe Reader renderer process. The CVE-2022-22047 exploit was then used to target a system process by providing an application manifest with an undocumented attribute that specified the path of the malicious DLL. Then, when the system process next spawned, the attribute in the malicious activation context was used, the malicious DLL was loaded from the given path, and system-level code execution was achieved. Microsoft recommends a number of security considerations to help mitigate this attack, including patching CVE-2022-22047, updating Microsoft Defender Antivirus to update 1.371.503.0 or later, and enabling multifactor authentication (MFA).

The European Union found evidence that smartphones used by some of its staff were compromised by an Israeli company's spy software, the bloc's top justice official said in a letter seen by Reuters. From the report: In a July 25 letter sent to European lawmaker Sophie in 't Veld, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said iPhone maker Apple had told him in 2021 that his iPhone had possibly been hacked using Pegasus, a tool developed and sold to government clients by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group. The warning from Apple triggered the inspection of Reynders' personal and professional devices as well as other phones used by European Commission employees, the letter said. Though the investigation did not find conclusive proof that Reynders' or EU staff phones were hacked, investigators discovered "indicators of compromise" â" a term used by security researchers to describe that evidence exists showing a hack occurred.

Amazon is raising prices for its Prime subscription service in the U.K. and across Europe as the e-commerce giant grapples with the effects of rising inflation. CNBC reports: In the U.K., Amazon is set to hike the annual price of a Prime membership to 95 pounds ($114), up from 79 pounds, representing a 20% jump. The changes will take effect Sept. 15. The company is enforcing even steeper price increases in European markets. In France, the price of an annual Prime membership is going up to 69.90 euros ($70) from 49 euros, a 43% increase. German Prime members can expect a 30% hike in their annual Prime prices to 89.90 euros, up from 69 euros.

Amazon blamed the price rises on "increased inflation and operating costs," along with higher expenses tied to faster delivery and content production for its Prime Video streaming service, Reuters reported. The company is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings Thursday. The move follows similar price hikes Amazon announced in the U.S. earlier this year. In February, the company said it would raise the price of its annual Prime membership for Americans to $139 from $119.

"High water temperatures threaten to reduce France's already unusually low nuclear output," Reuters reported last week, "piling more pressure on operator EDF at a time when half its reactors are offline due to maintenance and corrosion issues."

Because river water is used to cool the plants, "reactor production is limited during times of high heat to prevent the hot water re-entering rivers from damaging wildlife."

"Given the relative rarity of intense heat waves and outages due to storms, the climate-related hiccups have a small impact on energy production overall — affecting less than 1 percent of annual output for EDF on average..." reports Wired. (Though EDF "recently told reporters that it expects more cuts in the coming months as water levels continue to fall.") But Reuters points out this all comes at a bad time: EDF has already been forced to cut planned output several times this year because of a host of problems at its reactors — and expects an 18.5 billion euros ($18.6 billion) hit to its 2022 core earnings because of production losses.
Now EDF's debt "is projected to reach 60 billion euros by the end of the year," reported Agence France-Presse on Tuesday, adding that the "highly indebted" utility saw announcements of a take-over bid by France's national government to shareholders (at a cost of 9.7 billion euros ($9.9 billion): EDF's finances have been weighed down by declining output from France's ageing nuclear power stations, which it manages, and the state-imposed policy to sell energy at below cost to consumers in an effort to help them pay their energy bills.... The public tender offer is the simplest way to take back full control of EDF, analysts said, without the need for full legal nationalisation — of which there has been none in France since 1981....

Currently over half of France's 56 nuclear reactors are idle, either for maintenance or corrosion problems linked to ageing.... Nuclear energy currently covers some 70 percent of France's electricity needs.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the story.

Google will start allowing the developers of non-gaming apps in the European Economic Area (EEA) to offer alternate payment systems. In a blog post, Google outlines its plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act (or DMA), a piece of legislation aimed at regulating big tech. From a report: The DMA passed through the European Parliament earlier this month, but it isn't expected to go into force until spring 2023. But Google is rolling out the changes ahead of time to make sure that its plans "serve the needs" of users.

The legislation requires "gatekeepers," or companies with a market capitalization of $75.8 billion or over, to follow a set of rules meant to promote competition among digital platforms. Failing to comply could lead to fines of up to 10 percent of a firm's global revenue or 20 percent in case of repeat offenses. Android developers who choose to use an alternate payment processor will still have to pay Google a service fee for each transaction on the first $1 million they make within one year. However, Google says it will reduce this fee by 3 percent, meaning the company will take a 12 percent or lower cut from every transaction. If developers make more than $1 million in one year, Google will charge developers a 27 percent fee on transactions (3 percent less than the standard 30 percent).

Denmark is effectively banning Google's services in schools, after officials in the municipality of Helsingor were last year ordered to carry out a risk assessment around the processing of personal data by Google. TechCrunch reports: In a verdict published last week, Denmark's data protection agency, Datatilsynet, revealed that data processing involving students using Google's cloud-based Workspace software suite -- which includes Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar and Google Drive -- "does not meet the requirements" of the European Union's GDPR data privacy regulations. Specifically, the authority found that the data processor agreement -- or Google's terms and conditions -- seemingly allow for data to be transferred to other countries for the purpose of providing support, even though the data is ordinarily stored in one of Google's EU data centers.

Google's Chromebook laptops, and by extension Google Workspace, are used in schools across Denmark. But Datatilsynet focused specifically on Helsingor for the risk assessment after the municipality reported a "breach of personal data security" back in 2020. While this latest ruling technically only applies to schools in Helsingor for now, Datatilsynet notes that many of the conclusions it has reached will "probably apply to other municipalities" that use Google Chromebooks and Workspace. It added that it expects these other municipalities "to take relevant steps" off the back of the decision it reached in Helsingor. The ban is effective immediately, but Helsingor has until August 3 to delete user data. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement: "We know that students and schools expect the technology they use to be legally compliant, responsible, and safe. That's why for years, Google has invested in privacy best practices and diligent risk assessments, and made our documentation widely available so anyone can see how we help organizations to comply with the GDPR.

Schools own their own data. We only process their data in accordance with our contracts with them. In Workspace for Education, students' data is never used for advertising or other commercial purposes. Independent organizations have audited our services, and we keep our practices under constant review to maintain the highest possible standards of safety and compliance."

On July 7th Art News explained how 95-year-old Austrian artist Herbert W. Franke "has recently become a sensation within the art world the crypto space," describing the digital pioneer as a computer artist using algorithms and computer programs to visualize math as art. Last month, the physicist and science fiction writer was behind one of the most talked about digital artworks at a booth by the blockchain company Tezos at Art Basel. Titled MONDRIAN (1979), the work paid tribute to artist Piet Mondrian's iconic geometric visuals using a program written on one of the first home computers.

Days before this, Franke, who studied physics in Vienna following World War II and started working at Siemens in 1953, where he conducted photographic experiments after office hours, launched 100 images from his famed series "Math Art" (1980-95) as NFTs on the Quantum platform. The drop was meant to commemorate his birthday on May 14 and to raise funds for his foundation. The NFTs sold out in 30 seconds, with the likes of pioneering blockchain artist Kevin Abosch purchasing a few.
In one of his last interviews, Franke told the site that blockchain "is a totally new environment, and this technology is still in its early stages, like at the beginning of computer art. But I am convinced that it has opened a new door for digital art and introduced the next generation to this new technology." It echoed something he'd said in his first book, published in 1957, which he later quoted in the interview (a full 65 years later). "Technology is usually dismissed as an element hostile to art. I want to try to prove that it is not..."

This morning, long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino wrote: The German IT news site heise reports (article in German) that digital art pioneer, SF author ("The Mind Net") and cyberspace avantgardist Herbert W. Franke has died at age 95. His wife recounted on his Twitter account: "Herbert loved to call himself the dinosaur of computer art. I am [...] devastated to announce that our beloved dinosaur has left the earth.

"He passed away knowing there is a community of artists and art enthusiasts deeply caring about his art and legacy." Among much pioneering work he founded one of the worlds first digital art festivals "Ars Electronica" in Austria in 1979.
Franke's wife is still running the Art Meets Science web site dedicated to Franke's work. Some highlights from its biography of Franke's life: Herbert W. Franke, born in Vienna on May 14, 1927, studied physics and philosophy at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1951... An Apple II was his first personal computer which he bought 1980. He developed a program as early as 1982 that used a midi interface to control moving image sequences through music....

Only in recent years has "art from the machine" begun to interest traditional museums as a branch of modern art. Franke, who from the beginning was firmly convinced of the future importance of this art movement, has also assembled a collection of computer graphics that is unique in the world, documenting 50 years of this development with works by respected international artists, supplemented by his own works....

As a physicist, Franke was predestined to bring science and technology closer to the general public in popular form due to his talent as a writer, which became apparent early on. About one-third of his nearly fifty books, as well as uncounted journal articles...

Franke's novels and stories are not about predicting future technologies, nor about forecasting our future way of life, but rather about the intellectual examination of possible models of our future and their philosophical as well as ethical interpretation. In this context, however, Franke attaches great importance to the seriousness of scientific or technological assessments of the future in the sense of a feasibility analysis. In his opinion, a serious and meaningful discussion about future developments can basically only be conducted on this basis. In this respect, Franke is not a typical representative of science fiction, but rather a visionary who, as a novelist, deals with relevant questions of social future and human destiny on a high intellectual level.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a law Friday prohibiting the use of digital assets as forms of payments in Russia..." reports the tech/policy news site Protocol. The ban on crypto-form payments also apparently applies to NFTs: The new law also includes a provision that requires crypto exchanges and providers refuse transactions in which digital assets could be construed as a form of payment... The new law is set to take effect in 10 days.

There's been some speculation that sanctioned Russian companies or individuals might use crypto to avoid sanctions imposed after the country's invasion of Ukraine. But officials have proven savvy in using on-chain analytics to trace transactions, and industry experts have warned that sanctions evaders would be ill-served by trying to use cryptocurrencies. U.S. and EU bodies have even added specific crypto wallet addresses to sanction lists.

In an effort to settle accusations by regulators that the company engages in anti-competitive behavior, Amazon leaders have discussed abandoning its private-label "Amazon Basics" business altogether. This follows previously reported concessions including giving more visibility to listings from multiple sellers for a given product to prohibiting the company from using any non-public data from Amazon sellers to boost the company's own retail business. Recode reports: At least as recently as last year, several top Amazon executives, including its current worldwide retail CEO Doug Herrington and its general counsel David Zapolsky, expressed a willingness to make this different but significant change if it meant avoiding potentially harsh remedies resulting from government investigations in the US or abroad, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions.

Amazon's private-label business includes homegrown brands like Amazon Basics, which sells everything from garbage bags to batteries to office chairs, as well as the clothing line Amazon Essentials. The business line also includes brands that don't carry the Amazon name, such as the paper-goods label Presto, the food brand Happy Belly, and the fashion line Goodthreads. Such a concession would not apply to the company's own gadget lines, including Kindle, Echo, and Fire TV devices. Amazon's use of private-label brands has come under fire from politicians and regulators not merely because they exist, but because of the data Amazon leverages to create them and the tactics it uses to favor them in search results on its shopping website and app.

"There was a strong consensus that this could be a viable option if the company was ever pressed into a position where it had to negotiate a settlement," the source told Recode. This person requested anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal discussions. [...] The conversations at Amazon around abandoning its private labels occurred on and off for several years as scrutiny of the business line heightened, the source said, with executives expressing a desire to keep this potential remedy under wraps so that it could come across to regulators as a major concession. Leaders in favor of such a decision believed that Amazon had a right to sell private-label brands as many retailers do, but that the business was not strategically crucial enough to defend in the face of more severe potential remedies sought by antitrust enforcers. When a company like Amazon offers such a concession, it does so with the hope of closing down any current investigations. Amazon spokesperson Betsy Harden denies the report, saying the company continues "to invest in this area, just as our many retail competitors have done for decades and continue to do today."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Fifty-four members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are protesting what they call a "radical proposal" to require payments from online service providers to Internet service providers. Noting that Europe's 2015 "Open Internet Regulation ensures that citizens are free to use whichever apps and websites they wish," the MEPs said they have "deep concern about the European Commission's plans to change our net neutrality legislation in the upcoming Connectivity Infrastructure Act to be proposed in autumn, without having consulted the public, technology experts, academics, civil society, or expert regulatory agencies."

No specific proposal has been released, but "statements to the press indicate that a new provision would require payments from online service providers to broadband providers -- ostensibly to fund the rollout of 5G and fiber to the home," the MEPs wrote in the letter yesterday (PDF) to the European Commission. The letter cited a May 2 Reuters article that said, "Tech giants such as Google, Meta, and Netflix may have to bear some of the cost of Europe's telecoms network, Europe's digital chief Margrethe Vestager said on Monday, following EU telecoms operators' complaints." The MEPs' list of references also includes two Ars Technica articles from 2012 when a similar proposal was being discussed.

Vestager reportedly said at a news conference that "there are players who generate a lot of traffic that then enables their business but who have not been contributing actually to enable that traffic. They have not been contributing to enabling the investments in the rollout of connectivity... and we are in the process of getting a thorough understanding of how could that be enabled." [...] The MEPs' letter further argued that charging websites for access to broadband consumers would help ISPs abuse their monopolies: "Adopting a model that allows for or mandates access fees would be a disastrous return to the economic model for telephony, where telecommunications companies and countries leveraged their termination access monopolies to make communication expensive. Because phone companies had a monopoly over their customers, they could charge exorbitant prices to anyone seeking to call their customers. Broadband providers have the same monopoly over their customers. Allowing them to charge content providers for access could cause significant harm to the Internet economy." The MEPs also doubt such fees would improve broadband connectivity, saying that "factors such as permits or construction capacities can act as more severe barriers than lack of funding." They urged the European Commission to take its time and open an official consultation, saying, "There is no emergency that requires action in autumn 2022."