Meta has announced it will incorporate data from user interactions with its AI products to sell targeted ads starting December 16th. More than a billion users engage with Meta AI each month, and the company hopes to monetize this data to better refine its advertisements across a user’s accounts. This includes data gathered from Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses and its AI-video programs. Users may not opt out, but company officials say AI conversations involving controversial topics will not be incorporated into a user’s ad feed.
The 2025 Esports World Cup brought in hundreds of millions of viewers, highlighting the surging popularity of this once-niche hobby. As the field expands, Esports participants must increasingly comply with local consumer privacy laws, especially as they advertise to viewers and collect their data. Competitors themselves must obtain affirmative consent from users and companies must avoid falling afoul of unfair competition or deceptive business practice regulations.. Stakeholders throughout the industry must conduct extensive due diligence to avoid liability, whether it be event organizers, team managers, players, or sponsors, a burden which will only grow as the sport continues its meteoric growth.
The Supreme Court recently upheld Texas HB 1181, narrowly approving age verification for sexual content online in apparent contravention of online privacy. The need to submit ID exposes adult users to data breaches, to say nothing of intentional sale or surveillance. Recent data breaches at major companies and their partners indicates these fears may be warranted.
The Supreme Court also allowed President Trump to fire a commissioner of the FTC, which enforces consumer protection and antitrust laws. This decision signals a willingness to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. US, a 1935 decision restricting the President’s power to remove the leaders of independent regulatory agencies. By extension, this would threaten the ability of the FTC and similar agencies to regulate data usage and privacy in the US.
While the US tries to maintain a lead in the AI space, a black market in GPUs increasingly brings these high-demand products to China despite American regulations. The American government rarely approves exports of these goods, but unofficial channels salvage GPUs and clandestinely smuggle them from Taiwan and the US to Chinese companies. In the meantime, the US government has been working with semiconductor companies NVIDIA and AMD to compensate them for any revenue lost due to restrictions on exports to China.
(Compiled by David Gonzalez)