#antitrust

#antitrust

On Friday, a federal judge ordered Google to limit all default search and AI app contracts to one year, a setback for the long-term deals that have helped cement the company's dominance on billions of devices. The ruling, detailed in a December 2025 judgment, requires Alphabet's Google to renegotiate every default-placement agreement annually, including lucrative deals with Apple's iPhone and manufacturers like Samsung.

If you made a purchase on the Google Play Store for an app or in-app content between 2016 and 2023, including subscriptions, ad-free upgrades, and game-specific currency, you might be getting some money back as part of a $700 million settlement. Several years ago, Attorneys General in 53 US states, districts, and territories accused Google of monopolizing app distribution and making customers pay too much for apps and in-app purchases.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuits include the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and attorneys general in Virginia, Arizona, New York, Connecticut and Washington. The five states' attorneys general filed their unopposed motion to combine their lawsuit with the suit filed by the FTC on Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga granted the motion on Wednesday. The lawsuits, which were filed within one day of each other roughly two months ago,

We are convinced that RealPage is part of the solution to addressing the cost of housing, helping operators make informed, independent decisions in a complex housing market. We are pleased to have reached this agreement with the DOJ, which brings the clarity and stability we have long sought and allows us to move forward with a continued focus on innovation and the shared goal of better outcomes for both housing providers and renters.

Introduced in April 2021 with the release of iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5, Apple's ATT framework requires that all apps on ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ ask for the user's consent before tracking their activity across other apps. Apps that wish to track a user based on their device's unique advertising identifier can only do so if the user allows it when prompted.

Do you ever get the feeling that the internet isn't what it used to be? Well, tech critic Corey Doctorow thinks you're right and he has a term to describe it too: enshittification'. He lays out his three-step theory to Nosheen Iqbal, explaining why sites from Amazon to Google to Instagram seem to offer a worsening experience and what can be done to stop it.

In a motion filed on Wednesday, the plaintiffs' counsel wrote that NAR's decision to change its MLS policies was essentially NAR admitting that those requirements are a violation of antitrust law. This admission is critical to the issues raised by Plaintiffs in their complaint and rebut the Defendants' arguments that the previous policy of the NAR requiring membership in its organization in order for brokers and agents to access the MLS did not violate antitrust law and were not wrongful, the filing states.

Portland City Council voted Wednesday night to adopt Councilor Angelita Morillo's proposed AI rental price-fixing ban, with eight councilors in support. In addition to co-sponsors Green, and Koyama Lane, the ordinance was approved by Councilors Dunphy, Avalos, Kanal, Loretta Smith, and Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney. Clark and Ryan voted no, and Councilors Steve Novick and Eric Zimmerman were absent. After months of uncertainty, a policy to ban the sale or use of algorithmic rental price-fixing software in Portland is back on the table.

Oregon's attorney general says the software allows landlords to "coordinate rent increases rather than competing independently."

Real estate's biggest turf war is playing out this week in a Manhattan courtroom, where a federal judge must decide if the so-called "Zillow ban" is fair. Compass, the nation's largest real estate brokerage by sales volume, is fighting the ban, under which Zillow excludes home listings from its site and penalizes brokers when properties were previously listed as private "exclusives" elsewhere.

A yearslong fight between the Federal Trade Commission and Meta, which dates back to when it was still called Facebook, has ended with Meta prevailing, and a federal judge declaring that the company likely does not hold a monopoly in the social media sphere anymore.