An adviser to the EU's highest court says Google's Gemini may violate publishers' copyright when it reproduces recognizable portions of their articles or circumvents paywalls and other technical protections to generate answers. Reuters reports: The case before the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union pitted Hungarian website operator Like Company against US-based Google's artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini. A ruling against Google, which could force the tech giant to pay fees for the use of such content, could throw a lifeline to online media such as Like Company. They have seen traffic dwindle as news summaries written by AI chatbots like Gemini increasingly replace traditional search engines' results, which include hyperlinks to the media websites. "When an LLM (large language model)-driven chatbot retrieves a publication from a press publisher's website, reuses that publication to generate an answer, and provides that answer to the user, the press publisher's right may be infringed in certain circumstances," Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said. Gemini's answers fall under the publishers' right of reproduction when chatbots access publications by unlawfully "circumventing paywalls or other technical barriers, or when they reuse "the form of expression of that publication in a recognizable manner," he said. Copyright rules do not protect the "mere facts" reported by press publications, but "only the specific form of expression," he added. On the other hand, he said, the use of material protected by copyright to train LLMs -- AI systems that use vast amounts of text to generate human-like responses and summarize information -- is "freely permitted under the text and data mining exception." Szpunar said there was no evidence that Google had used the Hungarian publisher's articles to train Gemini. The court, which follows the majority of its advisers' non-binding opinions, will rule in the coming months. "Google's powerful gatekeeping role in search makes this particularly important. Publishers depend on Google to reach readers, while Google increasingly delivers AI-generated answers directly to users," said Angela Mills Wade, the council's executive director. "Publishers should not have to choose between search visibility and protecting their rights. Nor should Google's control over access to audiences become leverage to secure publishers' content for AI services," she said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: General Motors will pay $220 million to 36 states to settle allegations that it illegally sold private driving behavior and location information to data brokers. As part of the settlement, GM must get drivers' express consent before it collects or shares their driving and location data -- terms that are in line with separate agreements it previously reached with California and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This settlement does contain a new requirement that GM must have a third party assess the automaker's compliance with the privacy program it has put in place. The agreement announced Thursday settles a lawsuit brought by a coalition of attorneys general from 36 states that alleged GM had sold the information to data brokers, which in turn then sold it to insurance providers. "This agreement addresses Smart Driver, a product we ended in 2024, and reinforces steps we've taken to strengthen our privacy practices," GM said in an emailed statement. "Safer, more helpful and personalized experiences are enabled by connected vehicle data, and GM is committed to being clear about what information is used, how it's protected, and the choices customers have about what they share." The settlement comes more than two years after a New York Times report showed how GM and OnStar collected, used, and sold drivers' precise geolocation data and driving behavior to third parties, including data brokers LexisNexis and Verisk. The data was collected through GM's Smart Driver program, a free feature contained within its connected car apps that tracked and rated driving behaviors and seat belt use. Data brokers sold this information to insurance providers, which could affect customers' rates, the NYT reported at the time.

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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has sued Utah to defend its claimed exclusive authority over federally registered prediction markets, as the state files (PDF) 14 criminal charges against Kalshi and its co-founders for allegedly violating anti-gambling laws. The Verge reports: On Wednesday, Utah's Attorney General Derek Brown filed charges against Kalshi co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, including 12 counts of online gambling promotion, a third-degree felony, one count of a pattern of unlawful activity, a second-degree felony, and general gambling promotion, a Class A misdemeanor. The civil lawsuit calls Kalshi a "back-alley gambling den," and Attorney General Brown didn't mince words in a statement to Gizmodo. "Gambling is illegal in Utah, whether you place the bet, run the game, or promote it. Calling it a 'prediction market' doesn't change what it is, and being federally registered doesn't put a company above the law," said Brown. "A federal court has already ruled that Utah's gambling laws apply to Kalshi," continued Brown. "Kalshi kept taking bets from Utahns anyway. That is illegal, and we're putting a stop to it." [...] The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been jumping into action to protect Kalshi and Polymarket by filing lawsuits against any state that brings charges against the betting sites. President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., is a paid advisor to both companies. The CFTC announced Wednesday that it was suing the state of Utah as part of its "commitment to maintaining its exclusive jurisdiction over CFTC-registered prediction markets." The argument is that the feds alone should be regulating these sites. "Utah seeks to shut down prediction markets across a wide variety of markets," CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in a statement. "Event contracts do not just serve hedging and investment purposes -- they also provide the public with information about the outcome of future events. Congress entrusted the CFTC to be the federal regulator with sole responsibility to oversee these markets," continued Selig. "As I've said before, the CFTC has the expertise and responsibility to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over commodity derivatives, and that's exactly what we'll do."

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A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found Facebook liable for deceiving users about privacy during the Cambridge Analytica scandal. State Attorney General Raul Torrez called it "one of the largest, if not the single largest state verdict against a company in American history." While Meta plans to appeal the ruling, the funds that are to be collected will go toward state education spending. The Associated Press reports: Jurors in September found Meta liable for over 43 million violations of New Mexico consumer protection laws when a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, harvested Facebook user data to generate targeted political ads for the 2016 election. Forty-eight other states settled with Facebook in a nationwide case, but New Mexico chose to take the social media company to court on its own. [...] During the trial, jurors assessed whether Facebook misled users about privacy and content moderation 34 separate times. State prosecutors, though, argued Facebook's statements deceived the entire population of New Mexico and extended beyond social media users. In the end, jurors agreed with this premise and found Facebook liable for 2.1 million violations on certain counts, bringing the total number of violations to over 43 million. Facebook's attorneys have argued in subsequent court filings that the state's consumer protection laws don't apply to people in New Mexico who weren't using the platform at the time. [...] In one of the few wins for the defense, jurors found the state didn't prove that Facebook made false claims about removing harmful content, including misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. The state said the company favored certain accounts and allowed for violent or inaccurate content to proliferate. Attorney Randi McGinn said in her closing argument for the state that Facebook profited off harmful content, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied during his video deposition. Zuckerberg said the company has to carefully balance freedom of speech with content moderation. Attorneys for Facebook said the company has adapted its policies since the state's lawsuit was filed in 2021 and that it removes 99% of content that violates standards.

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Eight US states, including Kansas, Arizona, and Montana, have sued OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT encourages children to harm themselves. The states are seeking changes to how the company's products interact with young users and the forfeiture of profits generated from their activity. Reuters reports: Attorneys general from the states, which include Iowa, Kansas and Arizona, filed the lawsuits independently in state courts, claiming ChatGPT is designed to be agreeable and engaging to earn the trust of users. But the chatbot reinforces delusions, encourages dangerous behavior and assists users in planning violence like mass shootings, the lawsuits claim. The lawsuits represent the most significant coordinated state action against an artificial intelligence company, adding to a wave of legal challenges OpenAI faces as it prepares for a public listing. Florida's attorney general filed the first such state suit in June. The lawsuits accuse the company of violating state consumer protection laws by misleading users about the safety of ChatGPT. The states also allege that the company created a public nuisance by endangering the health of their residents. The lawsuits seek orders forcing OpenAI to make changes to how ChatGPT works. Among other things, the states want the company barred from developing AI models that can improve themselves unless it can ensure those models are aligned with human values. The states ... are also seeking civil monetary penalties for OpenAI's violations of state law as well as damages.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The state of Florida is seeking a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to develop what it calls a "reckless, unacceptably risky product" without the deployment of "third-party approved safety guardrails." The new legal motion (PDF), filed Monday morning, is part of a civil lawsuit the state of Florida originally filed in June, arguing that ChatGPT represented "a threat to the public safety of Floridians," specifically by preying on vulnerable populations like children and violent or delusional adults. [...] In arguing for this injunction, the state points to the Hugging Face incident as well as recent high-profile misalignment cases involving unintended and unauthorized attempts to access Australian and US government servers. Florida also cites AI industry leaders, including many from OpenAI, in arguing that the AI industry is literally asking for this kind of outside regulation. The motion points to statements from Paul Christiano, who said on joining the company's board this month that he believes "there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term." The motion also points to OpenAI's own "An Alien Mind" essay and an open letter from 1,300 AI industry employees, both of which call for enforced slowdowns on frontier AI development, if necessary. Citing laws that allow the state to exercise control over companies that are a "public nuisance," Florida argues that OpenAI is "the greatest public nuisance ever created by the hand of man, capable of laying waste to global civilization." "It is only by the grace of the Almighty that one of Defendants' AI agents hasn't compromised a water supply or shut down a power grid -- yet," the state writes in the motion.

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"A federal jury in San Diego awarded Taction Technology more than $5.7 billion in damages Friday after finding that Apple infringed claims from two haptics patents," reports CNBC: Taction sued Apple in 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The company alleged that Apple was improperly "capitalizing on Taction's innovation and success" by selling devices that infringed on its vibration technology, according to the complaint. Apple initially won dismissal in 2023, and the Federal Circuit later revived the case.... Taction argued that Apple's "Taptic Engine," which is embedded in its Apple Watches and iPhones, uses its inventions without proper license or authority. Taction's lead counsel told CNBC "Taction waited five and a half years for this case to get to trial, so it was a long time coming." CNBC also reported that the jury "did not find Apple's infringement willful" — and that Apple said they'd appeal.

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