(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and policy. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
EU’s AI code draft
EU’s tech chief, Margrethe Vestager, said she believed a draft code of conduct on artificial intelligence could be drawn up within weeks allowing the industry to commit to a final proposal “very soon”.
Vestager added that the United States and European Union should push a voluntary code to provide safeguards while new laws are developed. Policymakers and many in the industry have expressed concern about AI, particularly content-creating generative AI such as ChatGPT, with some equating it to the risks posed by pandemics or nuclear war.
Amazon settles privacy violation allegations
Amazon agreed to pay $25 million to settle FTC allegations that it violated a child privacy policy and deceived parents, keeping the kid’s voice and location data recorded by its Alexa voice assistant. The company also agreed to pay $5.8 million in customer refunds for alleged privacy violations involving its doorbell camera Ring.
The FTC also ordered Amazon to delete inactive child accounts and certain voice and geolocation data. Amazon said it disagreed with the FTC’s claims on both Alexa and Ring and denied violating the law. But it said the settlements “put these matters behind us.”
Meta threatens to block news in California
Facebook parent Meta said it would remove news content in California, its home state if the state government passed legislation forcing tech companies to pay publishers.
The proposed California Journalism Preservation Act would require “online platforms” to pay fees to news providers whose work appears on their services, aimed at reversing a decline in the local news sector. The proposal is similar to laws in Australia where it prompted a brief shutdown of the Facebook news feed and in Canada, where the social media is threatening to withdraw news in response to proposed guidelines.
