The CMA is doing an investigation into the mobile ecosystems of Apple and Google to see if it can slap the Strategic Market Status on them and regulate them more.
United kingdom RSS
Ofcom, the UK's digital regulator, has said adult websites or platforms hosting adult content will have to put age checks in place by July, at the latest.
The UK government said this week that it has a big AI plan to drive growth in the country. It has already attracted billions of pounds and loads of jobs in just 48 hours.
The UK has fired the starting gun on its new online safety rules. Affected tech firms have until mid-March to come up with assessments about illegal harms on their platforms.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has given Vodafone and Three the go-ahead to merge after the pair agreed certain commitments.
The UK Government has begin a consultation into whether USB-C should be made a common charging standard.
The United States and the United Kingdom have announced a new partnership aimed at improving online safety for children.
Meta is partnering up with banks in the United Kingdom to combat fraudulent activities on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp with the help of the FIRE program.
Tubi is coming to the UK, the company has said. It will be available over the next few weeks on TV platforms, iOS, Android, and the Web. It said it has more than 20,000 films and TV episodes.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is investigating Hewlett Packard Enterprise's acquisition of Juniper Networks. It said that phase 1 of the investigation will close in August.
Three has conducted a survey among parents and found that they worry about their children's lack of digital skills. To help address the skills gap, it has launched workshops in 297 stores.
BT has been fined £2,800,000 by Ofcom for failing to provide a summary of its contracts to EE and Plusnet customers before they signed up. BT will also have to let people exit contracts without fees.
The UK has launched the independent UK Semiconductor Institute. It will help bring together government, universities, and the private sector to help the country's semiconductor sector do well.
The UK government's AI Safety Institute will launch a San Francisco-based office in the summer. It wants to expand its expertise in AI by having easy access to the creators in San Francisco.
The UK government is formulating proposals to help rights holders learn if their content has been used to train AI models. It aims to have these proposals ready before the election in autumn.
The CMA is no longer looking into Microsoft's partnership with Mistral AI, where it was given a minority stake. This means the regulator doesn't believe the partnership is a threat to competition.
The United Kingdom government has begun to draft a set of regulations that aim to govern the most powerful language models such as those behind OpenAI's ChatGPT which aims to limit potential harm.
_medium.jpg){kind=logo}
EE has announced a simpler price increase model that will come into force next year. It said that customers would be told of price increases in pounds and pence, and they wouldn't be inflation-linked.
A total of 47 million mobile and broadband customers are going to be hit with price rises in April. The comparison website Uswitch has provided some tips on how customers can avoid the hikes.
The UK-based consumer rights group, Which?, has exposed the scale of scam ads across major online platforms such as Google, YouTube, and Facebook. It called on companies to do more.
The UK Space Agency has announced £7.4 million in funding for several global space projects. This funding will help the UK play a part in upcoming space exploration while keeping costs quite low.
The UK government has invested a total of £22 million in two research hubs to turn research into business realities. The government hopes that this investment will put the UK ahead in semiconductors.
All of the UK's mobile network providers will close down their 3G services in 2024 and 2025. Vodafone is being most aggressive as it will conduct the final shutdown phase this month and next.
Shell Energy was fined £1.4 million by the regulator Ofcom for not properly informing customers that they were out of contract or that their contract was coming to an end. The issue is now resolved.
The consumer group Which? has warned that the Vodafone and Three merger in the UK could lead to higher prices and worse service in the short term. Longer term, it said that customers could benefit.
Which? has warned that it's relatively easy to get ChatGPT and Bard to craft text for scam emails and text messages. Its warning comes just days before the UK is set to host a summit on AI safety.
The UK has finally passed the Online Safety Bill. It's a wide-reaching piece of legislation that aims to improve child safety online. It threatens tech bosses who don't comply with fines and jail.
Vodafone and Three have said that their merger in the UK could create 12,000 new jobs. The Unite union has warned that similar mergers have actually led to job cuts and says up to 1,600 jobs could go.
More organisations have signed Ofcom's pledge to bring more women into senior tech roles. The pledge was originally signed by telecom companies from the UK in June but more have just signed.
The UK government has announced that Edinburgh will be home to a new exascale supercomputer. The computer will be 50 times more powerful than the UK's best supercomputer, the ARCHER2.
Which? has called on the broadband regulator, Ofcom, to put a ban in place on mid-contract price rises. It said consumers will face steep price increases in 2024 just as they have in 2023.
The UK government has asked artificial intelligence companies to share more details of how their large language models work. It's in preparation for a global AI summit in the UK in November.
The UK's competition regulator has launched an investigation into Qualcomm's acquisition of Autotalks. It wants to find out if the deal will hurt competition in the United Kingdom.
EE, which operates one of the biggest mobile networks in the UK, has announced several new AI-based security measures to fight spammers and scammers. The features will be deployed soon.
According to Ofcom, the UK broadband situation has improved over the last year. It said download and upload speeds had improved and that peak-time usage was having a bit less impact on speeds.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority has ended its investigation into Broadcom's $69 billion acquisition of VMware and published a final report. It has said the acquisition can go ahead.
Virgin Media O2 has announced upgrades to its network in several staycation locations around the UK including Kent, Cornwall, East Sussex, Yorkshire, the Scottish Highlands and Hebrides.
Apple could pull iMessage and FaceTime from the UK if the government passes new measures. Under changes to law, Apple would be forced to disable security features without telling users.
A new amendment to the Online Safety Bill will require a report to be submitted by an expert before Ofcom can decrypt people's messages. It's designed to add balance to the safety bill.
The UK's CMA has provisionally cleared Broadcom's acquisition of VMware. It will hear feedback from interested parties and give its final decision on the matter by the middle of September.
