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Tech crackdown

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Anthony Albanese’s minister are split over how to respond to AI investment.

Labor split over renewed push for AI to be able to harvest Australian art

A rift has opened within the Albanese government over chasing global investment in artificial intelligence and a creative sector warning it is being asked to bankroll the technology.

  • Rob Harris

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Having been declared a monopolist by a court last year, Google faced having to sell its Chrome browser and Android operating system. Instead, it emerged virtually unscathed.

Google just dodged a bullet and has new rivals to thank for it

Having been declared a monopolist by a court last year, Google faced having to sell its Chrome browser and Android operating system. Instead, it emerged virtually unscathed.

  • Stephen Bartholomeusz
US President Donald Trump and Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who is in the US for talks.

Trump aide’s fresh attack on tech taxes ahead of Australian trade summit

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is set to meet his US counterpart, Scott Bessent, along with the director of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, in Washington.

  • Michael Koziol
The US government has told a Federal judge it should break up Google and make it sell its Chrome web browser.

US government pushes to break up Google to fix search monopoly

The US Justice Department has asked a federal court to force Google to sell Chrome, its popular web browser – a move that could reshape competition on the internet.

  • David McCabe
What Google Search looked like at launch, in 1998.

Are we ready for an internet with no Google search?

Twenty-five years ago, Google’s minimalist search engine was a revelation. What would happen if the US government moved to break up its dominance?

  • David Swan
Meta’s privacy policy director Melinda Claybaugh in 2023.

Meta admits Australians cannot opt out of ‘predatory’ AI data scrape

Senators are calling for stronger privacy laws to give Facebook users the ability to block the company from using their posts to train its AI models, as users can in the EU.

  • David Swan
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Major tech companies face fines of almost $800,000 a day if they don’t front up over efforts to combat online abuse.

Government hammers big tech with barrage of new laws

Albanese has vowed to protect Australian sovereignty, while others in the government confirmed the plans for reforms on copyright, payments, content and online safety.

  • David Crowe and Paul Sakkal
X owner Elon Musk has had a win in the Australian courts.

‘Dark patterns’: European Commission is ticked off by Elon Musk’s X, again

The European Commission sees evidence of “motivated malicious actors” using X’s blue ticks to deceive users. Musk fires back, claiming that the EC offered his company “an illegal secret deal”.

  • Stephen Bartholomeusz
Yintao “Roger” Yu described a special committee of the Chinese government installed at the company’s Beijing offices that he said monitored all data on the platform

Trump just shook up America’s war on TikTok

If there’s one thing that unites an otherwise bitterly divided Washington, it’s China. But Donald Trump has just stirred the pot.

  • Stephen Bartholomeusz
Apple, Meta, Microsoft

How social media giants created a ‘paedophile paradise’

Australia used new laws to gain a world-first insight into how social media giants respond to child abuse material – and found a culture of “wilful blindness”

  • Jordan Baker