Policy – Page 28

Trump orders Ed Dept to make AI a national priority while plotting agency’s death

AI, Artificial Intelligence, department of education, Donald Trump, education, Policy / Paul Patrick / April 25, 2025

Trump pushes for industry involvement

It seems clear that Trump’s executive order was a reaction to China’s announcement about AI education reforms last week, as Reuters reported. Elsewhere, Singapore and Estonia have laid out their AI education initiatives, Forbes reported, indicating that AI education is increasingly considered critical to any nation’s success.

Trump’s vision for the US requires training teachers and students about what AI is and what it can do. He offers no new appropriations to fund the initiative; instead, he directs a new AI Education Task Force to find existing funding to cover both research into how to implement AI in education and the resources needed to deliver on the executive order’s promises.

Although AI advocates applauded Trump’s initiative, the executive order’s vagueness makes it uncertain how AI education tools will be assessed as Trump pushes for AI to be integrated into “all subject areas.” Possibly using AI in certain educational contexts could disrupt learning by confabulating misinformation, a concern that the Biden administration had in its more cautious approach to AI education initiatives.

Trump also seems to push for much more private sector involvement than Biden did.

The order recommended that education institutions collaborate with industry partners and other organizations to “collaboratively develop online resources focused on teaching K–12 students foundational AI literacy and critical thinking skills.” These partnerships will be announced on a “rolling basis,” the order said. It also pushed students and teachers to partner with industry for the Presidential AI Challenge to foster collaboration.

For Trump’s AI education plan to work, he will seemingly need the DOE to stay intact. However, so far, Trump has not acknowledged this tension. In March, he ordered the DOE to dissolve, with power returned to states to ensure “the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Were that to happen, at least 27 states and Puerto Rico—which EdWeek reported have already laid out their own AI education guidelines—might push back, using their power to control federal education funding to pursue their own AI education priorities and potentially messing with Trump’s plan.

Trump orders Ed Dept to make AI a national priority while plotting agency’s death Read More »

New Android spyware is targeting Russian military personnel on the front lines

android, Biz & IT, malware, Policy, russia, Security, spyware, Ukraine / Paul Patrick / April 25, 2025

Russian military personnel are being targeted with recently discovered Android malware that steals their contacts and tracks their location.

The malware is hidden inside a modified app for Alpine Quest mapping software, which is used by, among others, hunters, athletes, and Russian personnel stationed in the war zone in Ukraine. The app displays various topographical maps for use online and offline. The trojanized Alpine Quest app is being pushed on a dedicated Telegram channel and in unofficial Android app repositories. The chief selling point of the trojanized app is that it provides a free version of Alpine Quest Pro, which is usually available only to paying users.

Looks like the real thing

The malicious module is named Android.Spy.1292.origin. In a blog post, researchers at Russia-based security firm Dr.Web wrote:

Because Android.Spy.1292.origin is embedded into a copy of the genuine app, it looks and operates as the original, which allows it to stay undetected and execute malicious tasks for longer periods of time.

Each time it is launched, the trojan collects and sends the following data to the C&C server:

the user’s mobile phone number and their accounts;

contacts from the phonebook;

the current date;

the current geolocation;

information about the files stored on the device;

the app’s version.

If there are files of interest to the threat actors, they can update the app with a module that steals them. The threat actors behind Android.Spy.1292.origin are particularly interested in confidential documents sent over Telegram and WhatsApp. They also show interest in the file locLog, the location log created by Alpine Quest. The modular design of the app makes it possible for it to receive additional updates that expand its capabilities even further.

New Android spyware is targeting Russian military personnel on the front lines Read More »

FCC Democrat slams chairman for aiding Trump’s “campaign of censorship”

FCC, fcc news distortion, First Amendment, Policy / Kris Guyer / April 24, 2025

The first event is scheduled for Thursday and will be hosted by the Center for Democracy and Technology. The events will be open to the public and livestreamed when possible, and feature various speakers on free speech, media, and telecommunications issues.

With Democrat Geoffrey Starks planning to leave the commission soon, Republicans will gain a 2–1 majority, and Gomez is set to be the only Democrat on the FCC for at least a while. Carr is meanwhile pursuing news distortion investigations into CBS and ABC, and he has threatened Comcast with a similar probe into its subsidiary NBC.

Gomez’s press release criticized Carr for these and other actions. “From investigating broadcasters for editorial decisions in their newsrooms, to harassing private companies for their fair hiring practices, to threatening tech companies that respond to consumer demand for fact-checking tools, the FCC’s actions have focused on weaponizing the agency’s authority to silence critics,” Gomez’s office said.

Gomez previously criticized Carr for reviving news distortion complaints that were dismissed shortly before Trump’s inauguration. “We cannot allow our licensing authority to be weaponized to curtail freedom of the press,” she said at the time.

FCC Democrat slams chairman for aiding Trump’s “campaign of censorship” Read More »

AI secretly helped write California bar exam, sparking uproar

AI, AI ethics, AI law, machine learning, Policy / Mike M. / April 24, 2025

On Monday, the State Bar of California revealed that it used AI to develop a portion of multiple-choice questions on its February 2025 bar exam, causing outrage among law school faculty and test takers. The admission comes after weeks of complaints about technical problems and irregularities during the exam administration, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The State Bar disclosed that its psychometrician (a person or organization skilled in administrating psychological tests), ACS Ventures, created 23 of the 171 scored multiple-choice questions with AI assistance. Another 48 questions came from a first-year law student exam, while Kaplan Exam Services developed the remaining 100 questions.

The State Bar defended its practices, telling the LA Times that all questions underwent review by content validation panels and subject matter experts before the exam. “The ACS questions were developed with the assistance of AI and subsequently reviewed by content validation panels and a subject matter expert in advance of the exam,” wrote State Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson in a press release.

According to the LA Times, the revelation has drawn strong criticism from several legal education experts. “The debacle that was the February 2025 bar exam is worse than we imagined,” said Mary Basick, assistant dean of academic skills at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. “I’m almost speechless. Having the questions drafted by non-lawyers using artificial intelligence is just unbelievable.”

Katie Moran, an associate professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law who specializes in bar exam preparation, called it “a staggering admission.” She pointed out that the same company that drafted AI-generated questions also evaluated and approved them for use on the exam.

State bar defends AI-assisted questions amid criticism

Alex Chan, chair of the State Bar’s Committee of Bar Examiners, noted that the California Supreme Court had urged the State Bar to explore “new technologies, such as artificial intelligence” to improve testing reliability and cost-effectiveness.

AI secretly helped write California bar exam, sparking uproar Read More »

Trump is “desperate” to make a deal—China isn’t, analysts say

china, Donald Trump, Japan, Policy, tariffs, us-china trade war / Rejus Almole / April 24, 2025

Donald Trump has started signaling that he’s ready to slash tariffs on Chinese imports, but economists have warned that the US softening its stance now likely cedes power to China, which perhaps benefits from dragging out trade talks.

On Tuesday, Trump confirmed that he is willing to reduce 145 percent tariffs on all Chinese imports. A senior White House official told The Wall Street Journal that the tariffs may come “down to between roughly 50 percent and 65 percent.” Or perhaps the US may use a tiered approach, charging a 35 percent tax on goods that don’t threaten national security, while requiring 100 percent tariffs on imports “deemed as strategic to America’s interest,” other insiders told the WSJ.

For now, Trump is being vague, only confirming that tariffs “won’t be that high” or “anywhere near” 145 percent. Attempting to maintain a tough veneer, Trump warned that China must act quickly to make a deal to end the trade war or else risk making concessions that China may not consider ideal.

“If they don’t make a deal, we’ll set the deal,” he said.

But analysts told the South China Morning Post that Trump appears “anxious” and “panicked,” rushing to make a deal that China can afford to delay until more favorable terms are offered.

So far, Trump has not met with China’s president Xi Jinping, the WSJ reported, which will be essential to inking a deal. Instead, US officials have been in contact with underlings who have not helped advance the deal. Last week, Trump confirmed the deal was not “imminent,” the South China Morning Post reported, despite meeting a “number of times” to discuss opening up negotiations.

On Wednesday, while analysts suggested that Trump appeared “desperate” for a “quick deal,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, warned that the only path to a deal required the US to “stop making threats and resorting to coercion.” According to Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, China is well-positioned to get a better deal.

“[Trump] needs a quick deal,” Garcia-Herrero told the South China Morning Post. “China does not need to offer anything big in such circumstances, because the US is so desperate for a deal. With a few billion in imports from the US, China might manage to lower the tariffs. The deal might be sweeter for China than in 2019.”

Trump is “desperate” to make a deal—China isn’t, analysts say Read More »

Taxes and fees not included: T-Mobile’s latest price lock is nearly meaningless

Policy, T-Mobile, t-mobile plans, t-mobile price guarantee / Tim Belzer / April 23, 2025

“Price” is locked, but fees aren’t

T-Mobile makes 5-year price guarantee after refusing to honor lifetime price lock.

A T-Mobile store on April 3, 2020, in Zutphen, Netherlands.

T-Mobile is making another long-term price guarantee, but wireless users will rightfully be skeptical since T-Mobile refused to honor a previously offered lifetime price lock and continues to fight a lawsuit filed by customers who were harmed by that broken promise. Moreover, the new plans that come with a price guarantee will have extra fees that can be raised at any time.

T-Mobile today announced new plans with more hotspot data and a five-year price guarantee, saying that “T-Mobile and Metro customers can rest assured that the price of their talk, text and data stays the same for five whole years, from the time they sign up.” The promise applies to the T-Mobile “Experience More” and “Experience Beyond” plans that will be offered starting tomorrow. The plans cost $85 or $100 for a single line after the autopay discount, which requires a debit card or bank account.

The price-lock promise also applies to four new Metro by T-Mobile plans that launch on Thursday. T-Mobile’s announcement came three weeks after Verizon announced a three-year price lock.

If the promise sounds familiar, it’s because T-Mobile made lifetime price guarantees in 2015 and 2017.

“Now, T-Mobile One customers keep their price until THEY decide to change it. T-Mobile will never change the price you pay for your T-Mobile One plan,” T-Mobile said in January 2017. When a similar promise was made in 2015, then-CEO John Legere said that “the Un-contract is our promise to individuals, families and businesses of all sizes, that—while your price may go down—it won’t go up.”

Taxes and fees not included

T-Mobile raised prices on the supposedly price-locked plans about a year ago, triggering a flood of complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and a class action lawsuit. There were also complaints to the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces laws against false advertising. But so far, T-Mobile hasn’t faced any punishment.

Besides the five-year price guarantee, there’s at least one more notable pricing detail. T-Mobile’s previous plans had “taxes and fees included,” meaning the advertised price was inclusive of taxes and fees. With the new Experience plans, taxes and fees will be in addition to the advertised price.

This will make the plans cost more initially than customers might expect, and it gives T-Mobile wiggle room to raise prices during the five years of the price guarantee since it could increase any fees that are tacked onto the new plans. The fine print in today’s press release describes taxes and fees as “exclusions” to the price guarantee.

“Fees” can refer to virtually anything that a carrier chooses to add to a bill and isn’t limited to the carrier’s actual costs from taxes or government mandates. For example, T-Mobile has a “Regulatory Programs and Telco Recovery Fee,” which it acknowledges “is not a government tax or imposed by the government; rather, the fee is collected and retained by T-Mobile to help recover certain costs we have already incurred and continue to incur.”

This can include the cost of complying with legal obligations, “charges imposed on us by other carriers for delivery of calls,” and the cost of leasing network facilities that are needed to provide service, T-Mobile says. In other words, T-Mobile charges a separate fee to cover the normal expenses incurred by any provider of telecommunications services.

The promise is thus that the base price of a service plan won’t change, but T-Mobile gives itself wide discretion to add or increase fees on customers’ monthly bills. “Guarantee means that we won’t change the price of talk, text, and 5G smartphone data on our network for at least 5 years while you are on an Experience plan,” T-Mobile said today. T-Mobile’s terms and conditions haven’t been updated, but the terms address price promises in general, saying that price locks do not include “add-on features, taxes, surcharges, fees, or charges for extra Features or Devices.”

T-Mobile Consumer Group President Jon Freier, who has been with T-Mobile for about two decades, seemed to recognize in an interview with Fierce that customers are likely to be wary of new promises. “One of the things that we’ve heard from customers is that the more definition that we can put in terms of timing around the guarantee, the more believable and useful that guarantee is,” he said. “So we chose to roll out with five years.” Freier asserted that “we are absolutely signing up for the guarantee for the next five years.”

Freier even mentioned the 2015 guarantee in a video announcement today, saying that T-Mobile is now “evolving this promise and expanding it across our portfolio.”

T-Mobile fights price lock lawsuit

There is a better chance that T-Mobile will keep the latest promise, since it is limited in scope and lasts only five years, while the lifetime price lock was supposed to last for as long as customers chose to keep their plans. The lifetime price lock did last for more than five years, after all. But T-Mobile has shown that when it breaks a promise, it is willing to accept the public backlash and fight users in court.

A class action lawsuit over the nullified lifetime price lock is still pending in US District Court for the District of New Jersey. T-Mobile is trying to force plaintiffs into arbitration, and the sides are proceeding with discovery on the matter of whether the named plaintiffs “executed valid opt-outs of Defendant’s arbitration agreement.”

A joint status update in March said that T-Mobile refused to produce all the documents that plaintiffs requested, arguing that the “burden of collecting these documents far outweighs their potential relevance to the allowed scope of discovery.”

T-Mobile tried to give itself a way out when it introduced the 2017 lifetime price lock. Although a press release issued then made the promise sound absolute, a separate FAQ essentially nullified the promise by saying that T-Mobile was only promising to pay a customer’s final bill “if we were to raise prices and you choose to leave.” Customers who tried to hold T-Mobile to the lifetime price promise were not mollified by that carveout, given that it was published on an entirely separate page and not part of the price-lock announcement.

While customers may find it difficult to fully trust T-Mobile’s new guarantee, they can at least take a look at the carveouts to get a sense of how solid the new pledge is. We already noted the taxes and fees caveat, which seems to be the biggest thing to watch out for. This category on its own makes it easy for T-Mobile to raise your bill without technically breaking its promise not to raise the price of “talk, text and data.”

Guarantee “worthless based on T-Mobile’s previous actions”

The new plans are not yet live on T-Mobile’s website, so it’s possible a more detailed breakdown of caveats could be revealed tomorrow when the plans are available. The website for T-Mobile’s separate Metro brand has a slightly more detailed description than the one in the press release. While details could differ between the main T-Mobile brand and Metro, the Metro page says:

5-year guarantee means we won’t change the price of talk, text, and 5G smartphone data on our network for at least 5 years while you are on an eligible plan. Guarantee also applies to price for data on wearable/tablet/mobile Internet lines added to your plan. Your guarantee starts when you activate or switch to an eligible plan and doesn’t restart if you add a line or change plans after that. Per-use charges, plan add-ons, third-party services, and network management practices aren’t included.

As you might expect, wireless users commenting on the T-Mobile subreddit were not impressed by the price promise. “Price guarantee is worthless based on T-Mobile’s previous actions. They might as well save the ink/electrons,” one user wrote.

Many users remarked on the removal of “taxes and fees included,” and the specific end date for the price lock that applies only to the base price. “This is them saying we are sorry we screwed consumers,” one person wrote. “Now we will be more transparent about when in the future we will increase your rates.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

Taxes and fees not included: T-Mobile’s latest price lock is nearly meaningless Read More »

Harvard sues to block government funding cuts

First Amendment, Harvard, lawsuit, Policy, research funding, Science, Title VI, trump administration / Paul Patrick / April 23, 2025

The suit also claims that the funding hold, made in retaliation for Harvard’s letter announcing its refusal to accept these conditions, punishes Harvard for exercising free speech.

Separately, the lawsuit focuses on Title VI, part of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits the government from funding organizations that engage in racial discrimination. It’s Harvard’s alleged tolerance for antisemitism that would enable the government to put a hold on these funds. But the suit spells out the requirements for cutting funding—hearings, a 30-day waiting period, notification of Congress—that the law requires before funding can be cut. And, quite obviously, the government has done none of them.

Harvard also alleges that the government’s decision to hold research funds is arbitrary and capricious: “The Government has not—and cannot—identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen.”

Finally, the court is asked to consider an issue that’s central to a lot of the questions regarding Trump Administration actions: Can the executive branch stop the flow of money that was allocated by Congress? “Defendants do not have any inherent authority to terminate or freeze appropriated federal funding,” the suit claims.

Remedies

The suit seeks various remedies. It wants the government’s actions declared illegal, the freeze order vacated, and prohibitions put in place that will prevent the government from accomplishing the freeze through some other means. Harvard would also like any further reactions to allegations of antisemitism to follow the procedures mandated by Title VI and to have the government cover its attorney’s fees.

It also wants the ruling expedited, given the potential for damage to university-hosted research. The suit was filed in the District of Massachusetts, which is the same venue that has been used for other suits seeking to restrain the Trump administration’s attack on federally funded research. So far, those have resulted in rapid responses and injunctions that have put damaging funding cuts on hold. So, there’s a good chance we’ll see something similar here.

Harvard sues to block government funding cuts Read More »

White House plagued by Signal controversy as Pentagon in “full-blown meltdown”

Donald Trump, national security, Policy, signal, signalgate / Kris Guyer / April 22, 2025

“Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer,” Ullyot forecasted.

According to NPR—which has been the target of Trump threats to rescind funding—four of Hegseth’s senior advisors abruptly quit after The Times report was published. “They have all released public statements suggesting infighting within the department of defense,” NPR reported.

But Trump and Hegseth are presenting a united front against the public backlash. Trump confirmed that he considers any discussion of Hegseth’s chats a “waste of time,” The New York Times reported. And on Sunday, Hegseth told reporters gathered for a White House Easter event that he and Trump are “on the same page all the way.”

Hegseth labeled The Times’ latest report as a “hit piece.” Citing four people familiar with his family Signal chat, NYT report noted that Hegseth updated both Signal groups about the attack plans at about the same time, and these “were among the first big military strikes of Mr. Hegseth’s tenure.”

The implication is that if the media hadn’t outed the Signal use, perhaps Hegseth may have continued risking leaks of confidential military information. And although he and Trump hope the backlash will die down soon, his inclusion of his wife and brother on the second chat likely raises additional flags and “is sure to raise further questions about his adherence to security protocols,” the NYT suggested.

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, joined the White House in pushing back against reports, claiming the NYT’s sources are “disgruntled” former employees and insisting on X that “there was no classified information in any Signal chat.”

According to The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally copied on the initial Signal chat that sparked the backlash, Hegseth shared “precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing” two hours before the attack.

White House plagued by Signal controversy as Pentagon in “full-blown meltdown” Read More »

Trump can’t keep China from getting AI chips, TSMC suggests

AI chips, Artificial Intelligence, china, Chips Act, Donald Trump, Huawei, NVIDIA, Policy, semiconductors, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, tariffs, TSMC, us-china trade war / Kris Guyer / April 22, 2025

“Despite TSMC’s best efforts to comply with all relevant export control and sanctions laws and regulations, there is no assurance that its business activities will not be found incompliant with export control laws and regulations,” TSMC said.

Further, “if TSMC or TSMC’s business partners fail to obtain appropriate import, export or re-export licenses or permits or are found to have violated applicable export control or sanctions laws, TSMC may also be adversely affected, through reputational harm as well as other negative consequences, including government investigations and penalties resulting from relevant legal proceedings,” TSMC warned.

Trump’s tariffs may end TSMC’s “tariff-proof” era

TSMC is thriving despite years of tariffs and export controls, its report said, with at least one analyst suggesting that, so far, the company appears “somewhat tariff-proof.” However, all of that could be changing fast, as “US President Donald Trump announced in 2025 an intention to impose more expansive tariffs on imports into the United States,” TSMC said.

“Any tariffs imposed on imports of semiconductors and products incorporating chips into the United States may result in increased costs for purchasing such products, which may, in turn, lead to decreased demand for TSMC’s products and services and adversely affect its business and future growth,” TSMC said.

And if TSMC’s business is rattled by escalations in the US-China trade war, TSMC warned, that risks disrupting the entire global semiconductor supply chain.

Trump’s semiconductor tariff plans remain uncertain. About a week ago, Trump claimed the rates would be unveiled “over the next week,” Reuters reported, which means they could be announced any day now.

Trump can’t keep China from getting AI chips, TSMC suggests Read More »

Chrome on the chopping block as Google’s search antitrust trial moves forward

ai search, antitrust, department of justice, Google, Policy / Kris Guyer / April 22, 2025

The court ruled that Google has a search monopoly. Now, we learn the consequences.

The remedy phase of Google’s search antitrust trial is getting underway, and the government is seeking to force major changes. The next few weeks could reshape Google as a company and significantly alter the balance of power on the Internet, and both sides have a plan to get their way.

With opening arguments beginning today, the US Justice Department will seek to convince the court that Google should be forced to divest Chrome, unbundle Android, and make other foundational changes. But Google will attempt to paint the government’s position as too extreme and rooted in past grievances. No matter what happens at this trial, Google hasn’t given up hope it can turn back time.

Advantage for Justice Dept.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has a major advantage here: Google is guilty. It lost the liability phase of this trial resoundingly, with the court finding Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power.” As far as the court is concerned, Google has an illegal monopoly in search services and general search advertising. The purpose of this trial is to determine what to do about it, and the DOJ has some ideas.

This case, overseen by United States District Judge Amit Mehta, is taking place against a backdrop that is particularly unflattering for Google. It has been rocked by loss after loss in its antitrust cases, including the Epic-backed Google Play case, plus the search case that is at issue here. And just last week, a court ruled that Google abused its monopoly in advertising tech. The remedies in Google’s app store case are currently on hold pending appeal, but that problem is not going away. Meanwhile, Google is facing even more serious threats in the remedy phase of this trial.

The DOJ will come out guns blazing—it sees this as the most consequential antitrust case in the US since the Microsoft trial of the 1990s. The effects of breaking up Google could even rival the impact of antitrust actions against AT&T and Standard Oil decades earlier. We also expect to be reminded repeatedly that virtually every state has joined the government’s case against Google, indicating wide understanding that the market is not operating fairly.

A large seal of a white, Classical Revival-style office building is flanked by flags.

It’s no secret that incentives at the federal level are shifting as the second Trump administration politicizes the Justice Department to an unprecedented degree. Despite the new divisions, opinions are remarkably unified on the Google search case. The DOJ team has successfully made the case that Google is a monopolist, and now they have to enforce the law. The new conservative leadership sees Google as a principal source of the “censorship” of right-wing ideology, which they largely interpret as a downstream effect of Google’s undue market power.

This phase of the case is not about whether or not Google did it; the goal is to decide how to change Google. The DOJ tells Ars that it believes Google’s proposed remedies are anemic and won’t move the needle at all. In this case, government lawyers will argue that the playing field cannot be leveled unless Google gives something up, and that something ought to be Chrome. The government will attempt to show that Google’s handling of Chrome creates a barrier to competition, preferencing Google’s services over the competition.

The DOJ has suggested there are numerous entities that could acquire Chrome and instantly realign online markets, but Google is going to push back hard on that. The government will counter by producing multiple witnesses from Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Microsoft, and others to explain how their search businesses were stymied by Google and how hacking off Chrome could rectify that.

The DOJ is also interested in Google’s search placement deals—for example, paying Apple and Mozilla billions of dollars to make Google their default search engine. In the government’s view, this forced rivals to nibble around the edges after being locked out by Google’s contracts. The DOJ will try to have these contracts banned in addition to forcing the sale of Chrome.

Not done fighting

Google has already announced its preferred remedies in this case, which amount to less exclusivity in search contracts and more freedom for Android OEMs to choose app preloads. Google says it would also accept additional government oversight to ensure it abides by these remedies.

In the remedy phase, Google will try to portray the Justice Department’s proposal as heavy-handed and emblematic of the agency’s “interventionist agenda.” We expect to see Google looking for any opportunity to make the DOJ look out of touch with the realities of technology today.

Google says it will spend a lot of time arguing against the DOJ’s attempt to end search placement deals, and it will have some backup here in the form of representatives from Mozilla and Apple, both of which are paid billions of dollars per year to make Google their default search engine. These firms will explain Google’s services are the best available, and that’s why they use them. In the case of Mozilla, almost all the foundation’s revenue comes from Google, and Google doesn’t dispute that. In fact, it has noted in the past (and surely will again at the trial) that Mozilla would fold without all that Google money, and that’s bad for user choice. However, the DOJ will probably point out that the massive revenue Apple and Mozilla get from these deals makes their testimony less reliable.

Another pillar of Google’s opposition will be the privacy and security implications of the DOJ’s demand for data sharing. The DOJ will claim this is essential to help other search providers to compete, but Google will paint this as a threat to the privacy of user data. And then there’s the national security angle, which Google has been pushing harder since the start of the year.

More than anything else, Google doesn’t want to lose Chrome. We expect to see Google’s established opposition to Chrome divestiture cranked up to 11 in the remedy phase. The company will no doubt be able to point to many instances where it acted as a benevolent steward of the open web through the dominance of Chrome. It chose to make Chromium open source and has kept it that way, even though it could have made more money keeping the code to itself.

There is uncertainty about the future of Chrome if it’s sold off, and a Google spokesperson suggests the company will capitalize on that. Google’s legal team will forecast a world in which Chrome has become less secure without Google’s involvement, the Chromium project has crumbled, and browser choice has cratered. Google says its goal of providing easy access to its products and services gives it a strong incentive to keep Chrome free and open, which may not be the case for its new owner. The DOJ would call that self-dealing, of course.

While the government has backed away from the stringent AI investment limits in its original remedy request, Google still worries its AI efforts could be hampered by limits on self-dealing. We expect Google to talk about the rapid pace of changes in AI today, portraying this case as too focused on how the search market worked a decade ago. The company may even go so far as to admit it’s losing ground to the likes of OpenAI as more people use AI to get answers to their questions instead of traditional web search. But can a company worth $2 trillion count on anyone feeling sorry for it?

A time of consequence

The trial will run for a few weeks, and later on, we’ll learn what remedies the court has decided to impose. That doesn’t mean anything will change for Google in the short- or medium-term, though. All the lawyering should be done by early May, and then it’s up to Judge Mehta to decide on the final remedies, which could come as late as August 2025.

That won’t be the end of things. Google is adamant that it plans to appeal the case, but it has to go through the remedy phase first. Google may be able to get the remedies paused while it pursues a new verdict, similar to the current state of the app store case. Much of what the DOJ wants would fundamentally alter the nature of Google’s business, making it difficult to undo the changes if Google does prevail on appeal.

Even if Google can maintain the status quo for the foreseeable future, the company could be headed into Google I/O in late May with a sword of Damocles dangling over its metaphorical head. Google has enjoyed years of growth so stupendous and unprecedented that it reshaped media and commerce. If Google is forced to give up a key product like Chrome or lose its default status in popular products, there’s no telling how the Internet could change. One thing is certain, though. The next few weeks will be the most consequential for Google since it went public more than 20 years ago.

Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he’s written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards.

Chrome on the chopping block as Google’s search antitrust trial moves forward Read More »

Trump’s tariffs trigger price hikes at large online retailers

Amazon, Donald Trump, eCommerce, Online Shopping, Policy, shein, tariffs, temu, us-china trade war / Kris Guyer / April 20, 2025

Popular online shopping meccas Temu and Shein have finally broken their silence, warning of potential price hikes starting next week due to Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Temu is a China-based e-commerce platform that has grown as popular as Amazon for global shoppers making cross-border purchases, according to 2024 Statista data. Its tagline, “Shop like a billionaire,” is inextricably linked to the affordability of items on its platform. And although Shein—which vows to make global fashion “accessible to all” by selling inexpensive stylish clothing—moved its headquarters from China to Singapore in 2022, most of its products are still controversially manufactured in China, the BBC reported.

For weeks, the US-China trade war has seen both sides spiking tariffs. In the US, the White House last night crunched the numbers and confirmed that China now faces tariffs of up to 245 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported. That figure includes new tariffs Trump has imposed, taxing all Chinese goods by 145 percent, as well as prior 100 percent tariffs lobbed by the Biden administration that are still in effect on EVs and Chinese syringes.

Last week, China announced that it would stop retaliations, CNBC reported. But that came after China rolled out 125 percent tariffs on US goods. While China has since accused Trump of weaponizing tariffs to “an irrational level,” other retaliations have included increasingly cutting off US access to critical minerals used in tech manufacturing and launching antitrust probes into US companies.

For global retailers, the tit-for-tat tariffs have immediately scrambled business plans. Particularly for Temu and Shein, Trump’s decision to end the “de minimis” exemption on May 2—which allowed shipments valued under $800 to be imported duty-free—will soon hit hard, exposing them to 90 percent tariffs that inevitably led to next week’s price shifts. According to The Guardian, starting on June 1, retailers will have to pay $150 tariffs on each individual package.

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At monopoly trial, Zuckerberg redefined social media as texting with friends

facebook, ftc, Instagram, Meta, meta monopoly trial, monopoly, Policy, Social Media, tiktok / Kris Guyer / April 18, 2025

“The magic of friends has fallen away”

Mark Zuckerberg played up TikTok rivalry at monopoly trial, but judge may not buy it.

The Meta monopoly trial has raised a question that Meta hopes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can’t effectively answer: How important is it to use social media to connect with friends and family today?

Connecting with friends was, of course, Facebook’s primary use case as it became the rare social network to hit 1 billion users—not by being acquired by a Big Tech company but based on the strength of its clean interface and the network effects that kept users locked in simply because all the important people in their life chose to be there.

According to the FTC, Meta took advantage of Facebook’s early popularity, and it has since bought out rivals and otherwise cornered the market on personal social networks. Only Snapchat and MeWe (a privacy-focused Facebook alternative) are competitors to Meta platforms, the FTC argues, and social networks like TikTok or YouTube aren’t interchangeable, because those aren’t destinations focused on connecting friends and family.

For Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, however, those early days of Facebook bringing old friends back together are apparently over. He took the stand this week to testify that the FTC’s market definition ignores the reality that Meta contends with today, where “the amount that people are sharing with friends on Facebook, especially, has been declining,” CNN reported.

“Even the amount of new friends that people add … I think has been declining,” Zuckerberg said, although he did not indicate how steep the decline is. “I don’t know the exact numbers,” Zuckerberg admitted. Meta’s former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, also took the stand and reportedly testified that while she was at Meta, “friends and family sharing went way down over time . . . If you have a strategy of targeting friends and family, you’d have serious revenue issues.”

In particular, TikTok’s explosive popularity has shifted the dynamics of social media today, Zuckerberg suggested. For many users, “apps now serve primarily as discovery engines,” Zuckerberg testified, and social interactions increasingly come from sharing fun creator content in private messages, rather than through engaging with a friend or family member’s posts.

That’s why Meta added Reels, Zuckerberg testified, and, more recently, TikTok Shop-like functionality. To stay relevant, Meta had to make its platforms more like TikTok, investing heavily in its discovery algorithm, and even willing to irk loyal Instagram users by turning their perfectly curated square grids into rectangles, Wired noted in a piece probing Meta’s efforts to lure TikTok users to Instagram.

There was seemingly no bridge too far, because Zuckerberg said, “TikTok is still bigger than either Facebook or Instagram, and I don’t like it when our competitors do better than us.” And since Meta has no interest in buying TikTok, due to fears of basing business in China, Big Tech on Trial reported, Meta’s only choice was to TikTok-ify its apps to avoid a mass exodus after Facebook users started declining for the first time in 2022. Committing to this future, the next year, Meta doubled the amount of force-fed filler in Instagram feeds.

Right now, Meta is positioning TikTok as one of Meta’s biggest competitors, with Meta supposedly flagging it a “top priority” and “highly urgent” competitive threat as early as 2018, Zuckerberg said. Further, Zuckerberg testified that while TikTok’s popularity grew, Meta’s “growth slowed down dramatically,” TechCrunch reported. And perhaps most persuasively, when TikTok briefly went dark earlier this year, some TikTokers moved to Instagram, Meta argued, suggesting that some users consider the platforms interchangeable.

If Meta can convince the court that the FTC’s market definition is wrong and that TikTok is Meta’s biggest rival, then Meta’s market share drops below monopolist standards, “undercutting” the FTC’s case, Big Tech on Trial reported.

But are Facebook and Instagram substitutes for TikTok?

Although Meta paints the picture that TikTok users naturally gravitated to Instagram during the TikTok outage, it’s clear that Meta advertised heavily to move them in that direction. There was even a conspiracy theory that Meta had bought TikTok in the hours before TikTok went down, Wired reported, as users noticed Meta banners encouraging them to link their TikTok accounts to Meta platforms. However, even the reported Meta ad blitz seemingly didn’t sway that many TikTok users, as Sensor Tower data at the time apparently indicated that “Instagram and Facebook appeared to receive only a modest increase in daily active users and downloads” during the TikTok outage, Wired reported.

Perhaps a more interesting question that the court may entertain is not where TikTok users go when TikTok is down, but where Instagram or Facebook users turn if they no longer want to use those platforms. If the FTC can argue that people seeking a destination to connect with friends or family wouldn’t substitute TikTok for that purpose, their market definition might fly.

Kenneth Dintzer, a partner at Crowell & Moring and the former lead attorney in the DOJ’s winning Google search monopoly case, told Ars that the chief judge in the case, James Boasberg, made clear at summary judgment that acknowledging Meta’s rivalry with TikTok “doesn’t really answer the question about friends and family.”

So even though Zuckerberg was “pretty persuasive,” his testimony on TikTok may not move the judge much. However, there was one exchange at the trial where Boasberg asked, “How much does it matter if friends are on a particular platform, if friends can share outside of it?” Zuckerberg praised this as a “good question” and “explained that it doesn’t matter much because people can fluidly share across platforms, using each one for its value as a ‘discovery engine,'” Big Tech on Trial reported.

Dintzer noted that Zuckerberg seemed to attempt to float a different theory explaining why TikTok was a valid rival—curiously attempting to redefine “social media” to overcome the judge’s skepticism in considering TikTok a true Meta rival.

Zuckerberg’s theory, Dintzer said, suggests that “if I open up something on TikTok or on YouTube, and I send it to a friend, that is social media.”

But that broad definition could be problematic, since it would suggest that all texting and messaging are social media, Dintzer said.

“That didn’t seem particularly persuasive,” Dintzer said. Although that kind of social sharing is “certainly something that people enjoy,” it still “doesn’t seem to be quite the same thing as posting something on Facebook for your friends and family.”

Another wrinkle that may scramble Meta’s defense is that Meta has publicly declared that its priority is to bring back “OG Facebook” and refresh how friends and family connect on its platforms. Just today, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced a new Instagram feature called “blend” that strives to connect friends and family through sharing access to their unique discovery algorithms.

Those initiatives seem like a strategy that fully relies on Meta’s core use case of connecting friends and family (and network effects that Zuckerberg downplayed) to propel engagement that could spike revenue. However, that goal could invite scrutiny, perhaps signaling to the court that Meta still benefits from the alleged monopoly in personal social networking and will only continue locking in users seeking to connect with friends and family.

“The magic of friends has fallen away,” Meta’s blog said, which, despite seeming at odds, could serve as both a tagline for its new “Friends” tab on Facebook and the headline of its defense so far in the monopoly trial.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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