CNN tells the story of Luisa Neubauer, a 25-year-old woman who took the German government to court last year — and won: On April 29, the country's Supreme Court announced that some provisions of the 2019 climate change act were unconstitutional and "incompatible with fundamental rights," because they lacked a detailed plan for reducing emissions and placed the burden for future climate action on young people. The court ordered the government to come up with new provisions that "specify in greater detail how the reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions" by the end of next year. The decision made headlines across the world...

"This case changes everything," she said. "It's not nice to have climate action, it's our fundamental right that the government protects us from the climate crisis...."

Climate lawsuits are becoming an increasingly popular and powerful tool for climate change activists. A January report released by the United Nations Environment Programme found that the number of climate litigation cases filed around the world nearly doubled between 2017 and 2020. Crucially, the governments are starting to lose. Neubauer's victory came just months after a court in Paris ruled that France was legally responsible for its failure to meet emission cutting targets. Another similar case involving six young people from Portugal was fast-tracked at the European Court of Human Rights last October...

The cases are most often centered around the idea that future generations have a right to live in a world that is not completely decimated by the climate crisis.
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares an Ars Technica story noting that in addition to the German suit, "A similar lawsuit in the U.S. has been winding its way through the courts." First filed in 2015 on behalf of a group of children and teenagers, the suit accused the U.S. government of violating the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property by not taking stronger action on climate change.

Bayer AG lost its fight to topple a European Union ban on controversial insecticides that regulators blame for killing honeybees. Bloomberg reports: The EU Court of Justice dismissed the appeal, finding there were no legal errors in the European Commission's decision to impose restrictions on the substances' use, based on concerns that the chemicals posed "high acute risks for bees" and "the survival and development of colonies in several crops." Bayer and Syngenta AG in 2018 already lost a first round in court after telling judges that the EU ban on three so-called neonicotinoids forced farmers to revert to potentially more harmful chemicals. Bayer appealed one more time.

The EU's decision five years earlier imposed limits on the use of three neonics -- clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam -- saying they were "harmful" to Europe's honeybee population when used to treat flowering plants with nectar that attracts the insects. The court ruled on Thursday the commission "is entitled to consider that a risk to the colonies could not be ruled out" even if there is "scientific uncertainty at this stage as to the rate of mortality of individual bees." EU governments in 2018 voted in favor of widening the ban of neonicotinoids to apply everywhere, except for greenhouses. The commission has described the chemicals as "systemic," causing the entire plant to become toxic to bees.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has published its long-awaited report on how manufacturers limit product repairs. From a report: The "Nixing the Fix" [PDF] report details a host of repair restrictions, especially those imposed by mobile phone and car manufacturers. The anticompetitive practices covered by the FTC range from limited availability of spare parts and diagnostic software to designs that make repairs more difficult than they need to be. In response, the FTC wants to develop new laws and rules surrounding repairs, but it also wants better enforcement of existing legislation like the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA). While debates around right to repair rules in the EU have tended to focus on the environmental impact of sending broken devices to landfills, the FTC's report leads with the impacts they have on people. It says repair restrictions are bad for consumers when they can't easily repair their devices, and adds that these "may place a greater financial burden on communities of color and lower-income Americans." Independent repair shops also suffer as a result of repair restrictions, "disproportionately [affecting] small businesses owned by people of color."

[...] According to the FTC, manufacturers are guilty of using numerous tactics that make it difficult for customers and independent businesses to repair their products. Here's the full list from the FTC's report:

Product designs that complicate or prevent repair;
Unavailability of parts and repair information;
Designs that make independent repairs less safe;
Policies or statements that steer consumers to manufacturer repair networks;
Application of patent rights and enforcement of trademarks;
Disparagement of non-OEM parts and independent repair;
Software locks and firmware updates; or
End User License Agreements

Fresh questions have been raised over Amazon's tax planning after its latest corporate filings in Luxembourg revealed that the company collected record sales income of $53 billion in Europe last year but did not have to pay any corporation tax to the Grand Duchy. From a report: Accounts for Amazon EU Sarl, through which it sells products to hundreds of millions of households in the UK and across Europe, show that despite collecting record income, the Luxembourg unit made a $1.4 billion loss and therefore paid no tax. In fact the unit was granted $67.3 million in tax credits it can use to offset any future tax bills should it turn a profit. The company has $3.25 billion worth of carried forward losses stored up, which can be used against any tax payable on future profits. Margaret Hodge, a Labour MP who has long campaigned against tax avoidance, said: "It seems that Amazon's relentless campaign of appalling tax avoidance continues."

"Amazon's revenues have soared under the pandemic while our high streets struggle, yet it continues to shift its profits to tax havens like Luxembourg to avoid paying its fair share of tax. These big digital companies all rely on our public services, our infrastructure, and our educated and healthy workforce. But unlike smaller businesses and hard-working taxpayers, the tech giants fail to pay fairly into the common pot for the common good. President Biden has proposed a new, fairer system for taxing large corporations and digital companies but the UK has not come out in support of the reforms. The silence is deafening. The government must act and help to grasp this once-in-a-generation opportunity to banish corporate tax avoidance to a thing of the past."

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told U.S. lawmakers last year that the company has a policy prohibiting employees from using data on specific sellers to help boost its own sales. "I can't guarantee you that that policy has never been violated," he added. Now it's clear why he chose his words so carefully. POLITICO: An internal audit seen by POLITICO warned Amazon's senior leadership in 2015 that 4,700 of its workforce working on its own sales had unauthorized access to sensitive third-party seller data on the platform -- even identifying one case in which an employee used the access to improve sales. Since then, reports of employees using third-party seller information to bolster Amazon's own sales and evidence of lax IT access controls at the company suggest that efforts to fix the issue have been lackluster.

The revelations come as trustbusters worldwide are increasingly targeting Amazon, including over how it uses third-party seller data to boost its own offerings. The European Commission opened an investigation into precisely this issue in November 2020, with preliminary findings suggesting Amazon had breached EU competition law. "This is fuel for the suspicions I had," Dutch internet entrepreneur Peter Sorber said when told about the audit. Sorber sold children's clothes on Amazon, but 18 months after setting up his "Brandkids" store on the platform and entering the required sales data, his products disappeared from the search rankings. "You cannot ask a retailer to show his entire story with all sales statistics and then show that to your own purchasers. This is worse than not done. This is simply unfair competition," Sorber said.

Australian security software house Click Studios has told customers not to post emails sent by the company about its data breach, which allowed malicious hackers to push a malicious update to its flagship enterprise password manager Passwordstate to steal customer passwords. TechCrunch reports: Last week, the company told customers to "commence resetting all passwords" stored in its flagship password manager after the hackers pushed the malicious update to customers over a 28-hour window between April 20-22. The malicious update was designed to contact the attacker's servers to retrieve malware designed to steal and send the password manager's contents back to the attackers. In an email to customers, Click Studios did not say how the attackers compromised the password manager's update feature, but included a link to a security fix.

But news of the breach only became public after Danish cybersecurity firm CSIS Group published a blog post with details of the attack hours after Click Studios emailed its customers. Click Studios claims Passwordstate is used by "more than 29,000 customers," including in the Fortune 500, government, banking, defense and aerospace, and most major industries.

In an update on its website, Click Studios said in a Wednesday advisory that customers are "requested not to post Click Studios correspondence on Social Media." The email adds: "It is expected that the bad actor is actively monitoring Social Media, looking for information they can use to their advantage, for related attacks." "It is expected the bad actor is actively monitoring social media for information on the compromise and exploit. It is important customers do not post information on Social Media that can be used by the bad actor. This has happened with phishing emails being sent that replicate Click Studios email content," the company said. The report says Click Studios has remained extremely tightlipped about the situation. The company has refused to comment or respond to questions; it's also unclear if the company has disclosed the breach to U.S. and EU authorities, which require companies to disclose data breach incidents or face hefty fines.

Apple has "abused its dominant position" in the distribution of music streaming apps through its App Store, the European Commission said Friday. From a report: "Our preliminary finding is that Apple exercises considerable market power in the distribution of music streaming apps to owners of Apple devices. On that market, Apple has a monopoly," Margrethe Vestager, the head of competition policy in the EU, said in a press conference. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, opened an antitrust investigation into the App Store last year, after the music streaming platform Spotify complained in 2019 about Apple's license agreements. The agreements mean that app developers have to pay a 30% commission on all subscription fees that come through the App Store. On Friday, the EU said it took issue with the "mandatory use of Apple's own in-app purchase mechanism imposed on music streaming app developers to distribute their apps via Apple's App Store." App developers are also unable to inform users of alternative ways to purchase the same apps elsewhere --another issue the commission said it was concerned with.

The European Parliament approved a new law on terrorist content takedowns yesterday, paving the way for one-hour removals to become the legal standard across the EU. From a report: The regulation "addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online" will come into force shortly after publication in the EU's Official Journal -- and start applying 12 months after that. The incoming regime means providers serving users in the region must act on terrorist content removal notices from Member State authorities within one hour of receipt, or else provide an explanation why they have been unable to do so. There are exceptions for educational, research, artistic and journalistic work -- with lawmakers aiming to target terrorism propaganda being spread on online platforms like social media sites.

The types of content they want speedily removed under this regime includes material that incites, solicits or contributes to terrorist offences; provides instructions for such offences; or solicits people to participate in a terrorist group. Material posted online that provides guidance on how to make and use explosives, firearms or other weapons for terrorist purposes is also in scope. However concerns have been raised over the impact on online freedom of expression -- including if platforms use content filters to shrink their risk, given the tight turnaround times required for removals.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU's competition chief, will late this week publicly issue charges against Apple over concerns that the rules it sets for developers on its App store break EU law, Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing several people with direct knowledge of the announcement. From the report: The case started two years ago after music streaming app Spotify brought a complaint alleging that Apple took a hefty 30 per cent subscription fee in exchange for featuring it on its App Store, but refused to let users know of cheaper ways of accessing it outside the Apple ecosystem. The case is among a number against Apple and is one of the most high profile antitrust cases in Europe against a US tech group. The people warned that the timing could still slip.

"Ville de Bitche is a town situated in northwestern France with a rich military history, pastoral landscape, and an unfortunate sounding name," reports Slate. (Adding that the "e" is silent....)

"Recently tiny Bitche made international headlines after Facebook mistook the city's name for a swear word and deleted the town's Facebook page." The city's communication manager, Valêrie Degouy, contacted Facebook on March 19 to explain the situation and ask the company to reverse its decision — for the second time. (The page was previously deleted in 2016.) As she awaited Facebook's response — which apologized and reinstated the page Tuesday — Degouy set up a new page for her town, under the name of Marie 57230, her city's postal code. Although Facebook's mistake seems innocuous enough, for the towns located around Bitche, local Facebook pages serve as the main form of communication. Shutting the page down effectively creates a local news blackout. When Rohrbach-les Bitche — a nearby town in the region — heard about the deletion, it quickly rid "ls-Bitche" from its Facebook page name to avoid a similar fate...

The residents of Bitche are far from alone in their reliance on Facebook for local news. In the United States alone, more than 2,000 local newspapers have closed over the past two decades, according to an estimate from Joshua Scacco, associate professor of political communication at the University of South Florida. In these news deserts, Facebook has risen as an alternative information source, allowing anyone with an account to share updates and post events...

But Facebook is not only filling the local news void — it is tied to local papers' disappearance. "Social and digital media are a contributing factor in thinking about the declines of the presence of local newsrooms, as well as what that coverage looks like for the local newsrooms that remain," Scacco says. Facebook is moving advertising dollars away from local newspapers, and even driving the content local newspapers create. Local news coverage often panders to Facebook's algorithms when creating content and headlines, notes Ashley Muddiman, a communications professor at the University of Kansas.

TikTok is facing a legal challenge from former children's commissioner for England Anne Longfield over how it collects and uses children's data. The BBC reports: The claim is being filed on behalf of millions of children in the UK and EU who have used the hugely popular video-sharing app. If successful, the children affected could each be owed thousands of pounds. TikTok said the case was without merit and it would fight it.

Lawyers will allege that TikTok takes children's personal information, including phone numbers, videos, exact location and biometric data, without sufficient warning, transparency or the necessary consent required by law, and without children or parents knowing what is being done with that information. The claim is being launched on behalf of all children who have used TikTok since 25 May 2018, regardless of whether they have an account or their privacy settings. Children not wishing to be represented can opt out. "TikTok is a hugely popular social media platform that has helped children keep in touch with their friends during an incredibly difficult year," says Ms. Longfield. "However, behind the fun songs, dance challenges and lip-sync trends lies something far more sinister."

She alleges the firm is "a data collection service that is thinly veiled as a social network" which has "deliberately and successfully deceived parents." She added that those parents have a "right to know" what private information is being collected via TikTok's "shadowy data collection practices."

In response, TikTok said: "Privacy and safety are top priorities for TikTok and we have robust policies, processes and technologies in place to help protect all users, and our teenage users in particular. We believe the claims lack merit and intend to vigorously defend the action."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The European Union unveiled strict regulations on Wednesday to govern the use of artificial intelligence, a first-of-its-kind policy that outlines how companies and governments can use a technology seen as one of the most significant, but ethically fraught, scientific breakthroughs in recent memory. The draft rules would set limits around the use of artificial intelligence in a range of activities, from self-driving cars to hiring decisions, bank lending, school enrollment selections and the scoring of exams. It would also cover the use of artificial intelligence by law enforcement and court systems -- areas considered "high risk" because they could threaten people's safety or fundamental rights.

Some uses would be banned altogether, including live facial recognition in public spaces, though there would be several exemptions for national security and other purposes. The108-page policy is an attempt to regulate an emerging technology before it becomes mainstream. The rules have far-reaching implications for major technology companies that have poured resources into developing artificial intelligence, including Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, but also scores of other companies that use the software to develop medicine, underwrite insurance policies and judge credit worthiness. Governments have used versions of the technology in criminal justice and the allocation of public services like income support. Companies that violate the new regulations, which could take several years to move through the European Union policymaking process, could face fines of up to 6 percent of global sales.

The European Union regulations would require companies providing artificial intelligence in high-risk areas to provide regulators with proof of its safety, including risk assessments and documentation explaining how the technology is making decisions. The companies must also guarantee human oversight in how the systems are created and used. Some applications, like chatbots that provide humanlike conversation in customer service situations, and software that creates hard-to-detect manipulated images like "deepfakes," would have to make clear to users that what they were seeing was computer generated. [...] Release of the draft law by the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, drew a mixed reaction. Many industry groups expressed relief that the regulations were not more stringent, while civil society groups said they should have gone further.

Now that Apple's lost item finder AirTag has officially been introduced, competitor Tile is going on record ahead of its testimony in front of Congress tomorrow about how it perceives Apple's latest product. In a statement, Tile CEO CJ Prober said today: "Our mission is to solve the everyday pain point of finding lost and misplaced things and we are flattered to see Apple, one of the most valuable companies in the world, enter and validate the category Tile pioneered. The reason so many people turn to Tile to locate their lost or misplaced items is because of the differentiated value we offer our consumers. In addition to providing an industry leading set of features via our app that works with iOS and Android devices, our service is seamlessly integrated with all major voice assistants, including Alexa and Google. And with form factors for every use case and many different styles at affordable prices, there is a Tile for everyone.

Tile has also successfully partnered with top brands like HP, Intel, Skullcandy and fitbit to enable our finding technology in mass market consumer categories like laptops, earbuds and wearables. With over 30 partners, we look forward to extending the benefits of Tile to millions of customers and enabling an experience that helps you keep track of all your important belongings. We welcome competition, as long as it is fair competition. Unfortunately, given Apple's well-documented history of using its platform advantage to unfairly limit competition for its products, we're skeptical. And given our prior history with Apple, we think it is entirely appropriate for Congress to take a closer look at Apple's business practices specific to its entry into this category. We welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further in front of Congress tomorrow.

Amazon tried to use its power to coerce Ecobee into using its smart home products to collect user data by threatening Ecobee's ability to sell its products on Amazon, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The Verge reports: As of now, Ecobee's products can still be purchased on Amazon, but the WSJ claims that negotiations between Ecobee and Amazon are ongoing. According to the WSJ, the online retail giant asked Ecobee to share data from its Alexa-enabled smart thermostats, even when the customer wasn't actively using the voice assistant. Ecobee reportedly refused to have its devices constantly report back to Amazon about the state of the user's home, including data on which doors were locked or unlocked and the set temperature. The reasoning being that enabling its devices to report this data to Amazon would be a violation of its customer's trust.

Ecobee may have also been concerned that Amazon wanted the data to build competing products. The retail giant has a reputation for taking non-public sales data and using it to develop products -- something that's come up in antitrust investigations in the US and EU. Amazon has also been accused of using this sales data to directly copy and compete with other companies using its Amazon Basics brand.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Facebook's lead data supervisor in the European Union has opened an investigation into whether the tech giant violated data protection rules vis-a-vis the leak of data reported earlier this month. Here's the Irish Data Protection Commission's statement:

"The Data Protection Commission (DPC) today launched an own-volition inquiry pursuant to section 110 of the Data Protection Act 2018 in relation to multiple international media reports, which highlighted that a collated dataset of Facebook user personal data had been made available on the internet. This dataset was reported to contain personal data relating to approximately 533 million Facebook users worldwide. The DPC engaged with Facebook Ireland in relation to this reported issue, raising queries in relation to GDPR compliance to which Facebook Ireland furnished a number of responses.

The DPC, having considered the information provided by Facebook Ireland regarding this matter to date, is of the opinion that one or more provisions of the GDPR and/or the Data Protection Act 2018 may have been, and/or are being, infringed in relation to Facebook Users' personal data. Accordingly, the Commission considers it appropriate to determine whether Facebook Ireland has complied with its obligations, as data controller, in connection with the processing of personal data of its users by means of the Facebook Search, Facebook Messenger Contact Importer and Instagram Contact Importer features of its service, or whether any provision(s) of the GDPR and/or the Data Protection Act 2018 have been, and/or are being, infringed by Facebook in this respect." "We are cooperating fully with the IDPC in its enquiry, which relates to features that make it easier for people to find and connect with friends on our services," Facebook said in a statement. "These features are common to many apps and we look forward to explaining them and the protections we have put in place."

Google Earth has partnered with NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab to bring users time-lapse images of the planet's surface -- 24 million satellite photos taken over 37 years. Together they offer photographic evidence of a planet changing faster than at any time in millennia. Shorelines creep in. Cities blossom. Trees fall. Water reservoirs shrink. Glaciers melt and fracture. From a report: "We can objectively see global warming with our own eyes," said Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth. "We hope that this can ground everyone in an objective, common understanding of what's actually happening on the planet, and inspire action." Timelapse, the name of the new Google Earth feature, is the largest video on the planet, according to a statement from the company, requiring 2 million hours to process in cloud computers, and the equivalent of 530,000 high-resolution videos. The tool stitches together nearly 50 years of imagery from the U.S.'s Landsat program, which is run by NASA and the USGS. When combined with images from complementary European Sentinel-2 satellites, Landsat provides the equivalent of complete coverage of the Earth's surface every two days. Google Earth is expected to update Timelapse about once a year.

The EU Commission has decided not to renew COVID-19 vaccine contracts next year with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Italian daily La Stampa reported on Wednesday, citing a source from the Italian health ministry. Reuters: "The European Commission, in agreement with the leaders of many (EU) countries, has decided that the contracts with the companies that produce (viral vector) vaccines that are valid for the current year will not be renewed at their expiry," the newspaper reported. It added that Brussels would rather focus on COVID-19 vaccines using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, such as Pfizer's and Moderna's. A spokesman for the EU Commission said it was keeping all options open to be prepared for the next stages of the pandemic, for 2022 and beyond.

The European Union is poised to ban artificial intelligence systems used for mass surveillance or for ranking social behavior, while companies developing AI could face fines as high as 4% of global revenue if they fail to comply with new rules governing the software applications. From a report: The rules are part of legislation set to be proposed by the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, according to a draft of the proposal obtained by Bloomberg. The details could change before the commission unveils the measure, which is expected to be as soon as next week. The EU proposal is expected to include the following rules:

* AI systems used to manipulate human behavior, exploit information about individuals or groups of individuals, used to carry out social scoring or for indiscriminate surveillance would all be banned in the EU. Some public security exceptions would apply.
* Remote biometric identification systems used in public places, like facial recognition, would need special authorization from authorities.
* AI applications considered to be 'high-risk' would have to undergo inspections before deployment to ensure systems are trained on unbiased data sets, in a traceable way and with human oversight.
* High-risk AI would pertain to systems that could endanger people's safety, lives or fundamental rights, as well as the EU's democratic processes -- such as self-driving cars and remote surgery, among others.
* Some companies will be allowed to undertake assessments themselves, whereas others will be subject to checks by third-parties. Compliance certificates issued by assessment bodies will be valid for up to five years.
* Rules would apply equally to companies based in the EU or abroad.

Google is signaling to the White House that a lack of coordination on tech and trade policy across the Atlantic is hurting business. From a report: Google's head of global policy and government affairs, Karan Bhatia, is urging the Biden administration to accept an invitation from the European Commission to form an EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council, according to a post shared exclusively with Axios. Around the world, different countries are proposing and enacting trade, tax, privacy and moderation rules impacting U.S. tech companies. On Thursday, the Biden administration proposed a tax agreement for very large multinational companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, the Wall Street Journal reports. Today's global regulatory patchquilt is a legacy of trade wars launched intermittently during the Trump administration plus aggressive moves aimed at U.S. tech companies from overseas. "Trans-Atlantic coordination has largely become an afterthought, if itâ(TM)s thought of at all," Bhatia wrote in a blog post. "These policy trends hurt both the U.S. and European economies, risking the 16 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic linked to transatlantic trade and investment," he wrote. "They also make it harder for the U.S. and the EU to address new global technology challenges and partner with emerging economies in Asia." Bhatia says the Biden administration should opt to participate in the proposed Trade and Technology Council to avoid "unilateral approaches" on data flows between the U.S. and Europe and regulation of digital platforms.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Facebook is adding additional labels to posts from Pages that appear in users' News Feeds in a bid to reduce confusion about their origin. These labels will include "public official," "fan page," and "satire page." The company says it's already started testing the deployment of these labels in the US, and will gradually add them to more posts. Facebook hasn't offered any explanation as to why it's adding these labels, but identifying satire seems particularly important. Take a look at the social shares for any news articles written by well-known satirical sites like The Onion or The Babylon Bee and you'll find plenty of people taking these stories at face value. In such a context these posts are essentially a type of misinformation, even if their creators did not intend this. Even high profile figures like former president Donald Trump have mistaken these stories for real reports.