Government & Policy

Technology is deeply intertwined with government and policy, both being regulated by them and augmenting civic infrastructure like voting, social services, the justice system, and state-funded research, as well as exploring the frontiers of civil rights.

With President Joe Biden dropping out of the race, Vice President Kamala Harris may become the Democrats’ new nominee. In announcing his plans, Biden offered his “full support and endorsement…

What Kamala Harris has said about AI, tech regulation and more

U.S. President Joe Biden has announced he no longer plans to seek reelection, a decision that follows weeks of growing pressure from some Democratic Party supporters, including high-profile tech investors…

Joe Biden drops out of presidential race

Featured Article

Some Black startup founders feel betrayed by Ben Horowitz’s support for Trump

Trump is an advocate for a number of policies that could be harmful to people of color.

Some Black startup founders feel betrayed by Ben Horowitz’s support for Trump

Featured Article

Tracking the EV battery factory construction boom across North America

A wave of automakers and battery makers — foreign and domestic — have pledged to produce North American–made batteries before 2030.

Tracking the EV battery factory construction boom across North America

Prior to the ban, Trump’s team used his channel to broadcast some of his campaigns. With the ban now lifted, his channel can resume doing so.

Twitch reinstates Trump’s account ahead of the 2024 presidential election

Here’s everything you need to know so far about the global outages caused by CrowdStrike’s buggy software update.

What we know about CrowdStrike’s update fail that’s causing global outages and travel chaos

The European Union’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, was confirmed in the role for another five years Thursday after parliamentarians voted overwhelmingly to re-elect her. The scale of her support…

The EU just re-elected its president for another five years — here’s what that means for tech

Italy’s competition watchdog is investigating how Google gets user consent in order to link their activity across different services for ad profiling.

Google accused of misleading consumers to grab more data for ads

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, issued a warning on Wednesday against choosing a candidate purely based on whether they claim to be “pro-crypto.” In a blog post, Buterin said…

Ethereum co-founder’s warning against ‘pro-crypto’ candidates: ‘Are they in it for the right reasons?’

There had been rumors the U.K.’s shiny new-in-post Labour government would commit to introducing a dedicated artificial intelligence bill on Wednesday as it unveiled its full legislation program amid the…

On AI, new UK gov’t to work on ‘appropriate’ rules for ‘most powerful’ models and beef up product safety powers

Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of one of the most prominent venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, says he’s been a Democrat most of his life. He says he has endorsed…

Andreessen Horowitz co-founders explain why they’re supporting Trump

U.K. authorities have until early September to decide whether the hiring is tantamount to a merger.

Microsoft faces UK antitrust probe after hiring Inflection AI founders and employees

The Russia-based security software maker said its U.S. business is “no longer viable” following a U.S. Commerce Department sales ban.

Kaspersky to shut down US operations, lay off employees after US government ban

An Indian court has initiated insolvency proceedings against edtech giant Byju’s, once-valued at $22 billion.

Byju’s, once valued at $22 billion, faces insolvency proceedings

Former President Donald Trump picked Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate on Monday, as he runs to reclaim the office he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.…

Trump’s VP candidate JD Vance has long ties to Silicon Valley, and was a VC himself

Whistleblowers have accused OpenAI of placing illegal restrictions on how employees can communicate with government regulators, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post. Lawyers representing anonymous whistleblowers sent…

Whistleblowers accuse OpenAI of ‘illegally restrictive’ NDAs

Meta announced former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will no longer be subject to heightened suspension penalties, according to an updated blog post on Friday. The company says…

Meta removes special restrictions for Trump’s account ahead of 2024 elections

A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a new bill that seeks to protect artists, songwriters and journalists from having their content used to train AI models or generate AI…

New Senate bill seeks to protect artists’ and journalists’ content from AI use

A new study from the Federal Trade Commission looks at the “dark patterns” that subscription apps and websites use to get more money or data…

TechCrunch Minute: FTC finds ‘dark patterns’ in subscription apps

If X continues to violate Europe’s data protection rules, the company is on the hook for fines of up to €4,000 per day.

More bad news for Elon Musk after X user’s legal challenge to shadowban prevails

The platform formerly known as Twitter has earned the dubious honor of being the first very large online platform (VLOP) to face a preliminary finding of breaching the European Union’s…

Europe confirms first clutch of DSA grievances on Elon Musk’s X

The full and final text of the EU AI Act, the European Union’s landmark risk-based regulation for applications of artificial intelligence, has been published in the bloc’s Official Journal. In…

EU’s AI Act gets published in bloc’s Official Journal, starting clock on legal deadlines

The European Union has accepted commitments from Apple over how it operates Apple Pay to settle a long-running competition investigation. Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager, who heads up the EU’s competition…

EU ends Apple Pay antitrust probe with binding commitments to open up contactless payments

The core issue relates to a 2019 licensing change whereby Microsoft made it more expensive to run Microsoft’s enterprise software on rival cloud services.

Microsoft settles with European cloud trade body over antitrust complaints

The European Union has designated adult content website XNXX as subject to the strictest level of content regulation under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) after it notified the bloc…

XNXX joins handful of adult sites subject to EU’s strictest content moderation rules

In a first, the Federal Trade Commission is banning an app from serving users under the age of 18. The agency announced on Tuesday that it’s banning NGL, an anonymous…

FTC bans NGL from offering its anonymous social app to minors

Berlin-based food delivery giant Delivery Hero has warned investors it may “ultimately” face an antitrust fine of up to €400 million. The development, reported earlier by Reuters, follows unannounced raids…

Delivery Hero warns it could face €400M antitrust fine

It sounds like the latest dispute between Apple and Fortnite-maker Epic Games isn’t over. Epic has been fighting Apple for years over the company’s revenue-sharing requirements in the App Store.…

Epic Games CEO promises to ‘fight’ Apple over ‘absurd’ changes

As deep-pocketed companies like Amazon, Google and Walmart invest in and experiment with drone delivery, a phenomenon reflective of this modern era has emerged. Drones, carrying snacks and other sundries,…

What happens if you shoot down a delivery drone?

After multiple rejections, Apple has approved Fortnite maker Epic Games’ third-party app marketplace for launch in the EU. As now permitted by the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Epic announced…

Apple approves Epic Games’ marketplace app after initial rejections