GLOBAL
RestofWorld: Fed up with Big Tech, communities turn to data collectives for control – Rina Chandran
A growing pushback against big tech companies, and greater awareness of the value of data, is spurring interest in data collectives and cooperatives, which give communities control over the collection, management, and distribution of their data. This alternative allows creators to benefit from data sets that may otherwise be ignored or misused.
ASIA
SBSNews: Australia’s new media bargaining laws put pressure on tech platforms to pay for news
The Australian government passed legislation on Thursday that will force tech giants to pay millions of dollars in levies if they fail to strike commercial deals with local media outlets for news on their platforms.
The News Bargaining Incentive taxes the companies 2.5 per cent on their advertising revenues unless they strike agreements.
Proceeds from the scheme would be directed to local Australian news outlets, whose content helps drive user engagement and advertising revenue on the tech firms’ platforms.
The levy applies to Meta, Alphabet’s Google, TikTok and Microsoft’s LinkedIn, covering companies with a “significant” social media or search service in Australia, and local advertising revenue exceeding $250 million.
Platforms can avoid the charge by reaching agreements with at least eight different publishers by the end of their reporting period. The value of those deals would be offset against their levy liability.
MI3: News Media Bargaining Incentive Clears Parliament: 2.75% charge to be levied on Big Tech
The Albanese Government’s final tinkering has wrapped up and the News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) has cleared Parliament with a tougher final shape. The final form: a 2.75% charge on Australian digital ad revenue, new eligible expenditures across at least 8 publisher groups, a higher 25% cap on the offset attributable to any one media group, and a 200% uplift for smaller publishers.
EconomicTimes: Keep UPI free, and fund it from the savings it generates – RS Sharma
In March 2017, in these pages, I argued that there was no justification for a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on mobile payments, and that a less-cash India depended on keeping them free (Conditions for a less-cash India, IE, March 4, 2017). That argument concerned an infant technology; it now has fresh urgency. Earlier this month, Parliament passed the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, rewriting Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act. That section barred any charge on BHIM-UPI and RuPay. The amendment replaces the bar with an enabling provision, allowing the government to notify in the future which modes can carry a charge. No charge is imposed today. But the door has been unlocked, and we should not walk through it.
Consider what UPI has become. In 2025-26, it carried over 24,000 crore transactions — roughly 66 crore — worth about Rs 314 lakh crore, accounting for some 85 per cent of India’s digital retail payments and nearly half the world’s real-time payments. It is overwhelmingly a system of small sums: The average transaction is about Rs 1,300, and 86 per cent of merchant payments are below Rs 500. Such transactions involve the vegetable seller, the auto driver, and the kirana shop. A charge here is not a charge on commerce in the abstract; it is a levy on the smallest transactions of the poorest.
Medianama: Japan proposes new IP safeguards for Generative AI training – Anjali Tripathi
Japan’s Cabinet Office has proposed a revised Principle-Code for generative artificial intelligence (AI) businesses that sets out principles on intellectual property (IP) protection, including avoiding crawling so-called pirate sites, respecting access restrictions such as paywalls, and increasing transparency around how businesses manage IP risks. The draft would use a ‘comply or explain’ approach, under which Generative AI businesses would either follow the principles or explain publicly why they do not.
The proposal could give rights holders more information about the models, training data and data-collection methods used by generative AI businesses, while leaving Japan’s existing copyright framework largely intact. It also puts transparency around data collection into a non-binding governance framework that would cover Japanese businesses and foreign businesses whose Generative AI systems or services are available in Japan.
USGovernment: The People’s Republic of Data: How China Is Turning Data into Capital – US and China Economic and Security Review Commission
In 2020, China designated data as a factor of production, formalizing its intent to make data into a key building block for economic progress. This decision elevated data to a strategic resource and compelled ongoing efforts to manage the creation, valuation, exchange, and productive use of data.
Beijing’s ambitions extend beyond economic growth. It is marshaling data to drive productivity, power its AI and technology goals, and improve its intelligence collection and military capabilities. Commercial gains are one facet of a wider contest with the United States over data as a source of national power.
China’s initial successes include the adoption of official data exchange infrastructure and published use cases for data applications. Despite challenges of low-quality data and hesitancy from private firms to participate in the state-led data economy, China has continued to adapt policy to encourage greater participation in the data economy.
China’s commercialization effort targets the data that remain scarce. With the open web largely exhausted as a training resource, competitive advantage rests on enterprise, operational, and physicalworld data that cannot be scraped, and China’s exchanges, accounting rules, and industrial data programs are aimed at precisely these categories.
Medianama: Why India’s Digital Competition Bill is still pending: What the govt. is studying – Prabhanu Kumar Das
The government is yet to finalise India’s Draft Digital Competition Bill, with a market study now set to inform key parts of the proposed framework. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs said it has adopted an “evidence-based and adaptive approach” after considering stakeholder comments and suggestions.
The study will examine the thresholds for identifying Systemically Significant Digital Enterprises (SSDEs), the Core Digital Services covered by the Bill, and the proposed framework’s impact on competition, innovation and market entry. It will also assess its impact on start-ups and MSMEs. The government said the study’s findings will guide the “finalisation of a balanced and forward-looking digital competition framework”. The Request for Proposal (RFP) was floated on GeM on November 3, 2025, with January 5, 2026, as the bid deadline.
The government said it wants empirical evidence before deciding the framework for ex-ante regulation. It has identified two areas for market studies or impact assessments: “Quantitative thresholds (financial and user threshold)” for identifying Systemically Significant Digital Enterprises and the “list of Core Digital Services”. It is therefore taking up a study on “Qualitative and Quantitative Thresholds for Big Tech Companies and Core Digital Services (CDS)”, based on stakeholder suggestions.
Medianama: After merchant payments, UPI is now being used for Qatar-to-India money transfers – Rohit Singh
India Post and Qatar Post have launched a UPI-based remittance service. It allows people in Qatar to send money directly to UPI-linked bank accounts in India. Users can access the service through participating Qatar Post outlets. The service, called PosTransfer, went live on August 15. The Universal Postal Union (UPU) and NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) developed it through the UPU’s Interconnection Platform.
BBC: New Zealand to introduce bill for under-16s social media ban – Amy Walker
New Zealand is to introduce a bill seeking to ban under-16s from using social media.
Under the latest proposals, platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, will have to take steps to check users are over 16 and platforms that fail to meet their obligations could face fines of up to 10% of their global revenue.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said social media was exposing children to “harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with”. But several political parties have said they will vote against the bill.
The move follows a similar ban in Australia, while countries including the UK and Greece are set to introduce restrictions next year.
AFRICA
ProPublica: Senators Criticize Trump Administration’s Demands to Access Health Data as a Condition for Lifesaving Aid – Sharon Lerner and Anna Maria Barry-Jester
Citing reporting by ProPublica, eight Democratic U.S. senators have criticized the Trump administration’s demands to access the health data of millions of people as a condition of giving lifesaving aid to other countries. In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the senators, including minority leader Chuck Schumer, said the U.S. demands were “unprecedented and at odds with U.S. policy concerning the data of American citizens.”
The inquiry into the administration’s approach to foreign health data referred to a ProPublica story published in June about agreements the U.S. struck with African countries — and the risks they posed to people there. Experts told ProPublica that the deals are vague and lack language used in most data-sharing agreements to adequately limit what information is collected and how it can be used. As a result, they said, there is an increased risk that individuals’ personal data could be exposed, misused or commercialized without their consent.
In the letter, which was sent last week, the senators expressed concern that the requirement to access foreign health data might reverberate beyond the countries where the aid agreements were struck and “set international precedents that ultimately harm Americans.” They noted that the demands for data appear to be at odds with the Trump administration’s National Cyber Strategy, which emphasizes the right to privacy for Americans and their data.
EUROPE
Reuters: Dutch regulator fines Uber $966 million for automating driver suspensions – Toby Sterling
The Dutch Data Protection Authority has fined Uber €825 million ($966 million) for deactivating driver accounts through automated systems without adequately informing them, according to an August 17 decision reviewed by Reuters.
The penalty would be the second-largest issued yet under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.
“Uber has committed serious infringements,” in deactivating driver accounts without warning or human involvement, the organisation’s deputy chair Monique Verdier said in a statement.
“From one moment to the next they no longer had any income … A computer should not make decisions on its own that have (such) major consequences.”
European regulators have imposed billions of euros in penalties on large U.S. technology companies in recent years under privacy, competition, and digital market rules.
Meta (META.O), Google (GOOGL.O), Apple (AAPL.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) all face multiple fines, though headline fines are often reduced or reversed after years-long appeals processes.
U.S. President Donald Trump has criticised such fines and in April, a U.S. State Department official said they were the “biggest single source of friction” in U.S.-EU economic relations.
Politico: UK ‘open to discussing’ digital services tax with Trump administration – Joseph Bambridge
Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government said the U.K. is willing to discuss American concerns over its digital services tax amid renewed pressure from the White House.
President Donald Trump in June threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on European countries with DSTs which target U.S. tech firms, and in an interview with The Times newspaper published on Monday, Trump’s top trade official Jamieson Greer said the threat was “not a bluff” and the president’s demands that foreign governments abandon such taxes were “quite serious.”
“We remain open to discussing U.S. concerns and working with partners internationally,” a U.K. government spokesperson said when asked about Greer’s comments.
Reuters: France’s top court blocks social media ban for under-15s – Elizabeth Pineau and Sudip Kar-Gupta
France’s top court on Friday blocked a bill banning social media access for under-15s, saying it infringed upon freedom of expression and delivering a setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who asked his government to rewrite the legislation.
The bill would have barred children younger than 15 from opening a social media account from September 1. Accounts already open would be closed within four months by social media platforms, which would also need to use age verification approved by the French privacy regulator.
But France’s Constitutional Council found that the bill, while requiring everyone to give proof of age, failed “to specify the conditions and limits” under which it should be provided, as well as infringing on freedoms and privacy.
“The Council holds that the contested provisions, on the one hand, disproportionately infringe upon the freedom of expression and communication and, on the other, fail to provide the legal safeguards necessary to ensure the right to respect for private life,” it said.
Reuters: French press body asks competition watchdog to take action over Google AI – Inti Landauro
A French press association has asked the country’s competition watchdog to take action against Google’s artificial intelligence-generated article summaries, which the trade group says deprive newspapers and magazines of readers.
The group has called on the regulator to make a decision similar to that which ordered Meta (META.O), opens new tab to put forward a payment plan and resume talks with traditional media seeking fees for the use of their content by AI tools.
The Alliance of General Information Press, which represents French newspapers and magazines, opposes the recent rollout of AI-generated article summaries by Google without consultation, the alliance said in a statement.
Medianama: Apple cuts EU App Store fees, India’s rates stay unchanged – Anjali Tripathi
Apple will move every developer distributing apps in the European Union to a single set of business terms, the company announced on August 18. The terms take effect on Oct 1, 2026. The commission on App Store apps using Apple’s in-app purchase system falls to 26%. Developers using an outside payment processor pay 20%. Apple says the changes “resolve Apple’s disagreements with the Commission over business terms and alternative distribution.” None of these changes currently apply in India. Developers here remain subject to Apple’s existing terms.
India’s regulatory framework helps explain that gap. The EU’s Digital Markets Act imposes obligations on designated gatekeepers upfront, rather than relying solely on case-by-case competition enforcement. India has considered its own ex-ante digital competition regime. The Committee on Digital Competition Law submitted its report with a draft Digital Competition Bill in February 2024. The bill has not been introduced in Parliament as of August 2026. A public consultation on the draft ran from March 2024 to May 2024 and drew over 100 responses. The government has told Parliament that “an evidence-based foundation through market studies is required” before it moves on ex-ante regulation. In the absence of an ex-ante digital competition law, competition enforcement against app-store terms in India continues largely through case-by-case proceedings.
NORTH AMERICA
CAP: The Trump Administration Has Created a De Facto Licensing System for Frontier AI Models – Adam Conner
In early August, the Trump administration reportedly finalized but declined to make public a “voluntary framework” for developers of “covered frontier models,” which are best described as “highly capable general-purpose AI models that can perform a wide variety of tasks and match or exceed the capabilities present in today’s most advanced models.” This marked the final action required by the president’s June artificial intelligence (AI) executive order, a process that began with the April announcement that Anthropic’s new frontier AI model Mythos posed tremendous cybersecurity capabilities and hacking risks. The Trump administration’s unprecedented application of export controls in June to Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models, forcing their removal from public access, turned a secretive “voluntary framework” into something far more consequential: an emerging system of de facto licensing for America’s most powerful AI models that is “voluntary” in name only.
Without any explicit statutory authority from Congress, and in near-total secrecy, President Donald Trump has assumed control over the release of powerful new frontier AI models through the functional equivalent of a licensing regime—determining the standards those models must meet, who can have access to them early, and when companies may release them to the public. Combined with the White House’s refusal to make its AI framework public and President Trump’s history of corruption and retaliation against enemies, these steps represent unprecedented and dangerous executive branch authority over frontier AI models, which may soon become the single most valuable economic, security, and information tool in the world.
TheGuardian: Donald Trump empowers US private companies to conduct cyber-attacks – Nick Robins-Early
Donald Trump signed a memo on Wednesday that aims to give private companies the power to carry out offensive cyber-attacks against foreign criminal entities.
The president signed a national security presidential memorandum directing his administration to “leverage the capability and innovation of the private sector to help conduct these cyber operations under the direction, control and authority of the US government”, the White House said.
The policy shift gives the private sector a role that has traditionally been reserved for government agencies, essentially deputizing companies in the fight against crime online. Trump’s memo does not give private firms unlimited ability to conduct hacking operations, but instead would authorize “limited cyber operations at the direction of the US government”.
TheGlobe&Mail: Canadian tech experts warn that trade talks may concede sovereignty over digital policy – Marie Woolf
Tech experts are expressing concern that the impending trade deal with the U.S. could compromise Canada’s sovereignty over its own digital policies – including a proposed social-media ban on those younger than 16.
Alarm bells are ringing in Canada after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer referred this week to “digital trade alignment” in a social-media post about a deal with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government.
Mr. Greer said a deal would include “comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments, digital trade alignment, and many important provisions.”
But the remark has raised concerns that Ottawa has traded away some of its ability to make its own digital policies.
There are added fears that Ottawa may be preparing deep concessions on its legislative agenda to assuage the concerns of U.S. tech and streaming giants such as Google, Meta and Apple.
TheGlobe&Mail: Ottawa rejected last-minute U.S. demand to drop Cancon rules for streamers – Marie Woolf
Ottawa’s negotiators rejected an 11th-hour demand from the Trump administration to ditch requirements that U.S. streaming platforms, including Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, promote Canadian film, TV and music to their users in Canada.
On Friday evening, the U.S. negotiating team introduced an unexpected demand that Canada provide exemptions to its laws requiring big U.S. streamers to boost the discoverability of Canadian content, including French-language content, in this country, according to a senior government source.
But Canada rejected the demand, made hours before the talks broke down, regarding it as a threat to this country’s culture and sovereignty. It was one of a number of reasons Ottawa’s team walked away from the negotiating table.
Politico: Trump is trying to wage an ambitious trade war with a shrinking army – Oliver Ward
The staff of the tiny agency on the front lines of President Donald Trump’s trade wars has shrunk to its smallest size in two decades as its responsibilities balloon. Its work is suffering.
Since Trump returned to the White House, the agency has rolled out new tariffs across the globe, launched trade negotiations with dozens of countries and reopened the signature pact governing North American trade. And after the Supreme Court struck down many of his initial tariffs, it has begun four probes into countries’ unfair trade practices to provide legal justification for new duties — with more threatened.
The trade agency is attempting to do all of this with a staff that has dwindled by about a fifth, which along with a hiring slowdown and an intensely compressed schedule is leading to often slapdash work, according to eleven former trade officials from the Trump and Biden administrations who spoke to POLITICO.
RestofWorld: Ban on Chinese robots leaves U.S. startups stranded – Viola Zhou
The U.S. government is forcing a rapid onshoring of robotics through a sweeping ban on foreign-made robots, even before an American supply chain exists, putting at risk the very robotics startups the policy is trying to cultivate.
The Federal Communications Commission last month added “advanced robotic devices” to its list of banned devices that pose national security risks. Under the rule, new models of foreign-made humanoids, quadrupeds, and even robot vacuums as well as lawn mowers will be banned from the American market.
LATIN AMERICA
APNews: Brazil’s Lula triggers reciprocity process against US tariffs in effort to show strength
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Friday his government has triggered an economic reciprocity law mechanism against U.S.-imposed tariffs, saying the move was intended to show his nation must be respected.
“Yesterday, we invoked the reciprocity law to show that we are not to be taken lightly,” Lula said in an interview with Brazilian podcasters. “We respect ourselves. I am very calm knowing what could happen, and I am prepared to debate the defense of Brazil anywhere in the world.”
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Thursday it is requesting diplomatic consultations with its U.S. counterparts on the issue, as a sign of Lula’s aim “to privilege dialogue and negotiation in its international relations.”
The beginning of the proceedings does not necessarily mean Brazil will retaliate against U.S. tariffs.
