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Digital Media & Content

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The SDPA and the CNMC, among other institutions, launch a series of coordinated actions related to the age verification of minors online, aimed at reinforcing their protection and preventing their access to harmful content. As in the rest of the European Union, the protection of minors online is one of the main areas of concern of Spanish authorities such as the Spanish Data Protection Agency (“SDPA”), the National Commission for Markets and Competition (“CNMC”) and…

A law aimed at establishing a digital majority and combating online hate (the “Digital Majority Law” or “Law”) was enacted on 7 July 2023[1]. 1. The Digital Majority Law creates new obligations for social network service providers operating in France. According to this Law, an online social network service is defined as “any platform enabling end-users to connect and communicate with each other, share content and discover other users and content, across multiple devices, in…

On 9 November 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held that an EU Member State may not subject an information society service provider (ISSP) established in another EU Member State to general and abstract regulatory measures that deviate from measures of the Member State in which the ISSP is established (C‑376/22). In doing so, it declared the Austrian Communication Platforms Act and, by implication, many other national online platform regulations, inapplicable…

The Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes wide-ranging and transformative obligations on online intermediaries and platforms. As has been well-publicised over the last few months, the most onerous obligations, and tighter deadlines for compliance, fall on services designated by the Commission as very large online platforms (VLOPs) or very large online search engines (VLOSEs). However, all online platforms and online search engines were required to publish information on their user figures earlier this year, and all…

Social media has become an increasingly vital part of firms’ marketing strategies across industries, and the financial sector – including its growing number of financial influencers or “finfluencers” – is no exception. In light of this trend the UK financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has published a consultation to update its guidance on social media financial promotions. With this new guidance, the FCA wants to ensure its expectations of financial promotions on…

NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens) continue to grow in popularity, but the inherent misalignments in speed between legislation and innovation present a major challenge. NFT project developers, companies interested in using NFTs as an entry point into the web3 world and other stakeholders face legal challenges regarding regulatory matters, aligning these projects with more traditional legal requirements (such as eCommerce related consumer laws) and potential IP (Intellectual Property) breaches. Although there are few legal precedents for NFTs,…

In brief If you sell goods and services to consumers through automatically renewing payment plans, free or discounted trials that convert into full plans, or other “negative option features” that interpret a consumer’s silence as permission to keep charging them (collectively, “recurring subscriptions”), you should monitor and consider submitting comments on the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC’s”) proposed Negative Option Rule. The proposed rule would impose detailed transparency, consent, simple cancellation and annual reminder requirements on companies…

February 2023 saw a landmark decision for brand owners and digital assets, as a first instance court decided the first US case to consider the application of trademark rights to digital artworks linked to Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). The decision (detailed in our alert here) centered around “MetaBirkins”: a collection of unique virtual tokens linked to digital faux-fur versions of the coveted Hermès Birkin bag. Hermès sued Rothschild for trademark infringement, dilution and cybersquatting, and the…