A Rome court ruled that several Netflix price hikes in Italy were unlawful because the company's contracts didn't adequately explain or justify future pricing changes. As a result, Netflix has been ordered to issue refunds that could total roughly 500 euros for some long-term subscribers. Ars Technica reports: The lawsuit was brought by Italian consumer advocacy group Movimento Consumatori, which alleged that the price hikes violate the Consumer Code, Italian legislation that aims to protect consumer rights. The Consumer Code says it's unlawful for a "professional to unilaterally modify the clauses of the contract, or the characteristics of the product or service to be provided, without a justified reason indicated in the contract itself," according to a Google-provided translation.

The court's April 1 ruling determined that Netflix's contracts were required to explain in advance why prices or other terms might change in the future. Because the price hikes were found to be imposed without providing customers with valid justifications, the court ruled that the new prices are invalid and ordered Netflix to refund affected subscribers. This comes despite Netflix reportedly providing a 30-day advance notice of the higher fees and allowing customers to cancel their subscriptions to avoid price hikes.

The court gave Netflix 90 days to inform millions of current and former customers via email, mail, its website, and Italian newspapers of their right to refunds or else face a penalty of 700 euros per day, Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reported today. Per Italian law, price increases that Netflix has issued or will issue beyond April 2025 are legal. At that time, Netflix adjusted its terms to state that contract terms could one day change due to technological, security, or regulatory needs, to clarify clauses, or to provide changes to the service, Il Sole 24 Ore reported.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Today at a hearing of the Colorado Senate Business, Labor, and Technology committee, lawmakers voted unanimously to move Colorado state bill SB26-090 -- titled Exempt Critical Infrastructure from Right to Repair -- out of committee and into the state senate and house for a vote. The bill modifies Colorado's Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment act, which was passed in 2024 and went into effect in January 2026. While the protections secured by that act are wide, the new SB26-090 bill aims to "exempt information technology equipment that is intended for use in critical infrastructure from Colorado's consumer right to repair laws."

The bill is supported by tech manufacturers like Cisco and IBM, according to lobbying disclosures. These are companies that have vested interests in manufacturing things like routers, server equipment, and computers and stand to profit if they can control who fixes their products and the tools, components, and software used to make those upgrades and repairs. They also cite cybersecurity concerns, saying that giving people access to the tools and systems they would need to repair a device could also enable bad actors to use those methods for nefarious means. (This is a common argument manufacturers make when opposing right-to-repair laws.)

[...] During the hearing, more than a dozen repair advocates spoke from organizations like Pirg, the Repair Association, and iFixit opposing the bill. YouTuber and repair advocate Louis Rossmann was there. The main problem, repair advocates say, is that the bill deliberately uses vague language to make the case for controlling who can fix their products. [...] The Colorado Labor and Technology committee advanced the bill, but it still needs to go through votes on the Colorado Senate and House floors before going into effect. Those votes may take place as early as next week. Regardless of how the bill goes in the state, it's likely that manufacturers will continue their push to alter or undo repair legislation in other states across the country. "The 'information technology' and 'critical infrastructure' thing is as cynical as you can possibly be about it," says Nathan Proctor, the leader of Pirg's US right-to-repair campaign. "It sounds scary to lawmakers, but it just means the internet."

The current wording of the bill "leaves it up to the manufacturers to determine which items they will need to provide repair tools and parts to owners and independent repairers and which ones they don't," says Danny Katz, executive director CoPIRG, the Colorado branch of the consumer advocate group Pirg. "This is a bad policy and would be a big step back for Coloradans' repair rights."

iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said in the hearing: "There's a general principle in cybersecurity that obscurity is not security," iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said in the hearing. "The money that's behind the scenes, that's what's driving the bill."

Tony Isaac shares a report from NPR: When it comes to using AI, it seems some lawyers just can't help themselves. Last year saw a rapid increase in court sanctions against attorneys for filing briefs containing errors generated by artificial intelligence tools. The most prominent case was that of the lawyers for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who were fined $3,000 each for filing briefs containing fictitious, AI-generated citations. But as a cautionary tale, it doesn't seem to have had much effect. The numbers started taking off last year, and the rate is still increasing. He counts a total of more than 1,200 to date, of which about 800 are from U.S. courts. "I am surprised that people are still doing this when it's been in the news," says Carla Wale, associate dean of information & technology and director of the law library at the University of Washington School of Law. "Whatever the generative AI tool gives you -- as in, 'Look at these cases' -- you, under the rules of professional conduct, you have to read those cases. You have to read the cases to make sure what you are citing is accurate."

"I think that lawyers who understand how to effectively and ethically use generative AI replace lawyers who don't," she says. "That's what I think the future is."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Perplexity's AI search engine encourages users to go deeper with their prompts by engaging in chat sessions that a lawsuit has alleged are often shared in their entirety with Google and Meta without users' knowledge or consent. "This happened to every user regardless of whether or not they signed up for a Perplexity account," the lawsuit alleged, while stressing that "enormous volumes of sensitive information from both subscribed and non-subscribed users" are shared.

Using developer tools, the lawsuit found that opening prompts are always shared, as are any follow-up questions the search engine asks that a user clicks on. Privacy concerns are seemingly worse for non-subscribed users, the complaint alleged. Their initial prompts are shared with "a URL through which the entire conversation may be accessed by third parties like Meta and Google." Disturbingly, the lawsuit alleged, chats are also shared with personally identifiable information (PII), even when users who want to stay anonymous opt to use Perplexity's "Incognito Mode." That mode, the lawsuit charged, is a "sham."

"'Incognito' mode does nothing to protect users from having their conversations shared with Meta and Google," the complaint said. "Even paid users who turned on the 'Incognito' feature still had their conversations shared with Meta and Google, along with their email addresses and other identifiers that allowed Meta and Google to personally identify them." "Perplexity's failure to inform its users that their personal information has been disclosed to Meta and Google or to take any steps to halt the continued disclosure of users' information is malicious, oppressive, and in reckless disregard" of users' rights, the lawsuit alleged.

"Nothing on Perplexity's website warns users that their conversations with its AI Machine will be shared with Meta and Google," Doe alleged. "Much less does Perplexity warn subscribed users that its 'Incognito Mode' does not function to protect users' private conversations from disclosure to companies like Meta and Google."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Responding to public health concerns about microplastics and pharmaceuticals in the nation's drinking water, the Trump administration for the first time has placed them on a draft list of contaminants maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA announced the move Thursday, touting it as a "historic step" for the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement, which often raises concerns about toxic chemicals and plastic pollution in our food and environment. Also Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a $144 million initiative, called STOMP, to develop tools to measure and monitor microplastics in drinking water and in a later stage, to remove them.

The Safe Drinking Water Act requires the EPA to publish an updated version of its Contaminant Candidate List every five years. This is the sixth iteration of the list. Microplastics and pharmaceuticals appear in the draft of the upcoming list, alongside per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, and dozens of other chemicals and microbes. Their inclusion on the list gives local regulators a tool to evaluate risks in their water supply, the EPA says, and it can set the stage for more research and regulatory action -- but doesn't actually guarantee that will happen.

schwit1 shares a report from the Kathmandu Post: In Nepal, helicopter rescue on high altitude is, by any measure, a genuine lifesaving operation. At high altitude, where oxygen thins and weather changes without warning, the ability to airlift a stricken trekker to Kathmandu within hours has saved countless lives. But threaded through that legitimate system, exploiting its urgency, its opacity, and its distance from oversight, is one of the most sophisticated insurance fraud networks in the world. Nepal's fake rescue scam is not new. The Kathmandu Post first exposed it in 2018. Months later, the government convened a fact-finding committee, produced a 700-page report, and announced reforms. In February 2019, The Kathmandu Post published a long investigative report. Last year, Nepal Police's Central Investigation Bureau reopened the file, and what they found is that the fraud did not stop -- instead it was growing.

The mechanics of the fake rescue racket are straightforward: stage a medical emergency, call in a helicopter, check a tourist into a hospital, and file an insurance claim that bears little resemblance to what actually happened. But the sophistication lies in how each link in the chain is compensated, and how difficult it is for a foreign insurer -- operating from Australia and the United Kingdom -- to verify events that occurred at 3,000 metres in a remote Himalayan valley. The CIB investigation identifies two primary methods for manufacturing an "emergency." The first involves tourists who simply don't want to walk back. After completing a demanding trek -- an Everest Base Camp trek, for instance, can take up to two weeks on foot -- guides offer an alternative: pretend to be sick, and a helicopter will come. The guide handles the rest. The second method is more troubling. At altitudes above 3,000 meters, mild symptoms of altitude sickness are common. Blood oxygen saturation can drop, hands and feet tingle, headaches develop. In most cases, rest, hydration or a gradual descent is all that is needed. But guides and hotel staff, according to the CIB investigation, have been trained to terrify trekkers at precisely this moment. They tell them they are at risk of dying, that only immediate evacuation will save them. In some cases, investigators found that Diamox (Acetazolamide) tablets, used to prevent altitude sickness, were administered alongside excessive water intake to induce the very symptoms that would justify a rescue call.

In at least one case cited in the investigation, baking powder was mixed into food to make tourists physically unwell. Once a "rescue" is called, the financial choreography begins. A single helicopter carries multiple passengers. But separate, full-price invoices are submitted to each passenger's insurance company, as if each had their own dedicated flight. A $4,000 charter becomes a $12,000 claim. Fake flight manifests and load sheets are fabricated. At the hospital, medical officers prepare discharge summaries using the digital signatures of senior doctors who were never involved in the case. In some cases, these are done without those doctors' knowledge. Fake admission records are created for tourists who were, in some documented instances, drinking beer in the hospital cafeteria at the time they were supposedly receiving treatment. In one case, an office assistant at Shreedhi Hospital admitted that he had provided his own X-ray report taken about a year ago at a different hospital, to be used as a case for treatment of foreign trekkers to claim insurance. The commission structure that holds the network together was described in detail during police interrogations. Hospitals pay 20 to 25 percent of the insurance payment to trekking companies and a further 20 to 25 percent to helicopter rescue operators in exchange for patient referrals. Trekking guides and their companies benefit from inflated invoices. In some cases, tourists themselves are offered cash incentives to participate.

Longtime Slashdot reader Elektroschock writes: When Ubisoft pulled the plug on The Crew's servers without warning, players were left with a worthless game they'd already paid for. Now, consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir is fighting back, demanding gamers' right to play regardless of publisher whims. Supported by the "Stop Killing Games" movement, this landmark case challenges unfair terms before the Creteil Judicial Court (Val-de-Marne near Paris), and aims to protect players from disappearing games. The lawsuit that UFC-Que Choisir filed against Ubisoft on Tuesday alleges that the video game publisher "misled consumers about the permanence of their purchase and imposed abusive contractual clauses stripping players of ownership rights," reports Reuters.

A top EU official is urging Europeans to work from home, drive less, and cut air travel as the bloc braces for a prolonged energy crisis triggered by the Gulf conflict. The European Commission is also pushing member states to accelerate renewables and other energy-security measures as oil and gas disruptions continue. Politico reports: In a speech with echoes of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, EU energy chief Dan Jorgensen said Europe was facing a "very serious situation" with no clear end in sight. "Even if ... peace is here tomorrow, still we will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future," he said, following an extraordinary meeting of the EU's 27 energy ministers on Tuesday to discuss the crisis. "The more you can do to save oil, especially diesel, especially jet fuel, the better we are off," Jorgensen said, confirming an earlier report by POLITICO that Brussels wanted Europeans to travel less.

He urged member countries to follow the advice of the International Energy Agency, which he said included "work from home where possible, reduce highway speed limits by ten kilometers [an hour], encourage public transport, alternate private car access ... increase car sharing and adopt efficient driving practices." Longer term, he urged EU countries to double down on building more renewables, saying "this must be the time we finally turn the tide and truly become energy independent."

Australia is preparing possible court action against major social media platforms that are failing to enforce the country's social media ban on under-16s. "Three months after the ban came into effect, the eSafety Commissioner said it was probing Meta's Instagram and Facebook, Google's YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok for possible breaches of the law," reports Reuters. From the report: Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government was gathering evidence "so that the eSafety Commissioner can go to the Federal Court and win." "We have spent the summer building that evidence base of all the stories that no doubt you have all heard ... about how kids are getting around that," Wells told reporters in Canberra. The legal threat is a striking change of tone from a government which had hailed tech giants' shows of cooperation when the ban went live in December.

Under the Australian law, platforms must show they are taking reasonable steps to keep out underage users or face fines of up to $34 million per breach, something eSafety would need to pursue in a civil court. The regulator previously said it would only take enforcement action in cases of systemic noncompliance. But in its first comprehensive compliance report since the ban took effect, eSafety said measures taken by the platforms were substandard and it would make a decision about next steps by mid-year. "We are now moving âinto an enforcement stance," said commissioner Julie Inman Grant in a statement.

The regulator reported major compliance gaps, including platforms prompting children who had previously declared ages under 16 to do fresh age checks, allowing repeated attempts at age-assurance tests until a child got a result over 16 and poor pathways for people to report underage accounts. Some platforms did not use age-inference, which estimates age based on someone's online activity, and some only used age-assurance measures like photo-based checks after a user tried to change their age, rather than at sign-up. That made it "likely many Australian children aged under 16 have been able to create accounts on age-restricted social media platforms by simply declaring they are 16 or older", the regulator said. Nearly one-third of parents reported their under-16 child had at least one social media account after the ban took effect, of which two-thirds said the platform had not asked the child's age, it added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The Trump administration on Monday issued a long-awaited proposed rule to open up retirement plans to alternative assets, paving the way for private equity and cryptocurrencies to be added to 401(k) accounts. The measure, announced by the U.S. Department of Labor, is intended to ease longstanding barriers to incorporating these less liquid and less transparent assets into American retirement plans. It follows an executive order from President Donald Trump last summer and could clear the way for alternative asset management firms to tap a large new source of capital.

Industry groups have argued private market investments can enhance long-term returns and diversification for retirement savers, while skeptics warn higher fees, complexity and limited liquidity could limit those gains and pose risks for retail investors. Some private market funds that are already available to wealthier individual investors have shown signs of strain in recent months. Private credit funds known as business development companies have seen a wave of withdrawals. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the proposed rule was "an initial step" and aimed to be "mindful of the importance of protecting retirement assets."

The guidance lays out how plan trustees, who have a legal fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of members, can incorporate these assets. They would have to "objectively, thoroughly, and analytically consider, and make determinations on factors including performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, performance benchmarks, and complexity," the DOL said. Trustees who abide by them will be granted safe harbor that protects them from lawsuits, it added. The Supreme Court agreed earlier this year to hear one such case filed in 2019 by a former Intel employee claiming trustees made "imprudent" decisions by investing in hedge funds and private equity funds.

OkCupid and parent company Match Group settled an FTC case dating back to 2014 over allegations that the dating app shared users' photos and other personal data with a third party without proper disclosure or opt-out rights. Engadget reports: According to the FTC, OkCupid's privacy policy at the time noted that the company wouldn't share a user's personal information with others, except for some cases including "service providers, business partners, other entities within its family of businesses." However, the lawsuit accused OkCupid of sharing three million photos of its users to Clarifai, which the FTC claims is a "unrelated third party" that didn't fall under the allowed entities. On top of that, the lawsuit alleged that OkCupid didn't inform its users of this data sharing, nor give them a chance to opt out.

Moving forward, the settlement would "permanently prohibit" Match Group, which owns OkCupid, and Humor Rainbow, which operates OkCupid, from misrepresenting what kind of personal information it collects, the purpose for collecting the data and any consumer choices to prevent data collection. Even after the 2014 incident, OkCupid was found with security flaws that could've exposed user account info but, which were quickly patched in 2020.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In an effort to gather material for its LLM training, Meta used BitTorrent to download pirated books from Anna's Archive and other shadow libraries. According to several authors, Meta facilitated the infringement of others by "seeding" these torrents. This week, the court granted the authors permission to add these claims to their complaint, despite openly scolding their counsel for "lame excuses" and "Meta bashing." [...] The judge acknowledged that the contributory infringement claim could and should have been added back in November 2024, when the authors amended their complaint to include the distribution claim. After all, both claims arise from the same factual allegations about Meta's torrenting activity.

"The lawyers for the named plaintiffs have no excuse for neglecting to add a contributory infringement claim based on these allegations back in November 2024," Judge Chhabria wrote. The lawyers of the book authors claimed that the delay was the result of newly produced evidence that had "crystallized" their understanding of Meta's uploading activity. However, that did not impress the judge. He called it a "lame excuse" and "a bunch of doubletalk," noting that if the missing discovery truly prevented the contributory claim from being added in November 2024, the same logic would have prevented the distribution claim from being added at that time as well. "Rather than blaming Meta for producing discovery late, the plaintiffs' lawyers should have been candid with the Court, explaining that they missed an issue in a case of first impression..," the order reads.

Judge Chhabria went further, noting that the authors' law firm, Boies Schiller, showed "an ongoing pattern" of distracting from its own mistakes by attacking Meta. He pointed specifically to the dispute over when Meta disclosed its fair use defense to the distribution claim, which we covered here recently, characterizing it as a false distraction. "The lawyers for the plaintiffs seem so intent on bashing Meta that they are unable to exercise proper judgment about how to represent the interests of their clients and the proposed class members," the order reads. Despite the criticism, Chhabria granted the motion. [...] For now, the case moves forward with a fourth amended complaint, three new loan-out companies added as named plaintiffs, and a growing list of BitTorrent-related claims for Judge Chhabria to resolve.

Their goal is to use biometric data and blockchain to build age-verification measures directly into disposable vape cartridges.

Wired reports on a partnership between vape/cartridge manufacturer Ispire Technology and regulatory consulting company Chemular (which specializes in the nicotine market) — which they've named "Ike Tech": [Using blockchain-based security, the e-cig cartridge] would use a camera to scan some form of ID and then also take a video of the user's face. Once it verifies your identity and determines you're old enough to vape, it translates that information into anonymized tokens. That info goes to an identity service like ID.me or Clear. If approved, it bounces back to the app, which then uses a Bluetooth signal to give the vape the OK to turn on.

"Everything is tokenized," [says Ispire CEO Michael Wang]. "As a result of this process, we don't communicate consumer personal private information." He says the process takes about a minute and a half... After that onetime check, the Bluetooth connection on the phone will recognize when the vape cartridge is nearby and keep it unlocked. Move the vape too far away from the phone, and it shuts off again. Based on testing, the companies behind Ike Tech claim this process has a 100 percent success rate in age verification, more or less calling the tech infallible. "The FDA told us it's the holy grail technology they were looking for," Wang says. "That's word-for-word what they said when we met with them...."

Wang says the goal is to implement additional features in the verification process, like geo-fencing, which would force the vape to shut off while near a school or on an airplane. In the future, the plan is to license this biometric verification tech to other e-cig companies. The tech may also grow to include fingerprint readers and expand to other product categories; Wang suggests guns, which have a long history of age-verification features not quite working.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Rivian "just won a yearslong battle with car dealers in Washington state that threatens the model of how cars are sold." After fighting to sell its vehicles directly to buyers, Rivian threatened to take its case to voters with a ballot measure to permit direct sales. The dealers blinked. The state's dealer lobby not only dropped its opposition to a sales loophole for Rivian and rival EV-maker Lucid, but also encouraged lawmakers to approve one. The measure became law this month...

New auto entrants like Rivian, and Tesla before it, have spent years contending with long-established U.S. state laws that require new cars to be sold through independent franchised dealers. The auto startups — typically makers of EVs — argue that they can offer a better experience by selling directly to consumers, much as Apple sells iPhones through its own stores and online. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe has said the company is committed to direct-only sales because it's more profitable and gives the company control over how its vehicles are sold, marketed and maintained. The Washington compromise riled traditional automakers, including General Motors, Ford and Toyota, which lobbied against it, arguing it unfairly advantages startups. A trade group representing the automakers called it discriminatory and argued the exception could one day open the door to Chinese EV makers...

German automaker Volkswagen is currently facing several lawsuits from dealers over its plan to sell new Scout vehicles directly to consumers. Dealers say independent franchises are vital to the car-buying process, creating competition between dealerships that keeps prices affordable for consumers, while providing valuable services such as repairs, warranty work and financing... Yet for Washington's dealers, the prospect of putting franchise laws up for a popular vote laid bare a tough reality: given the choice, many car buyers want the freedom to avoid dealerships. Rivian's polling, which the company shared with lawmakers, showed nearly 70% of respondents favored allowing direct sales when asked whether they would support manufacturers selling cars directly to consumers...

The fight comes at a critical time for Rivian, which is launching a new, more affordable SUV in a bid to make consistent profits amid a downturn in U.S. EV sales... Rivian is able to directly sell cars in roughly half of U.S. states, but a number of them limit how many locations the company can operate. They can't disclose the price, though. For that, customers must go online.
The article notes that "Following the win, Rivian executives are eyeing other states that, like Washington, ban direct sales but also allow ballot initiatives: Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota..." It adds that lawmakers (from both parties) in the state of Washington had said "they have long felt pulled between giving consumers more car-buying freedom and protecting dealers, essentially small-business owners who are vital to local economies — and politically powerful."

But an executive at the Washington State Auto Dealers Association said dealers supported this new law partly because it protects them by barring future automakers from selling directly in the state, and by requiring Rivian and Lucid to adhere to the same regulations that govern how dealers operate.

Apple unveiled new device-level age restrictions in the UK on Wednesday. "After downloading a new update, users will now have to confirm that they are 18 or older to access unrestricted features," reports Gizmodo.

"Users will be able to confirm their age with a credit card or by scanning an ID." For those underage or who have not confirmed their age, Apple will turn on Web Content Filter and Communication Safety, which will not only restrict access to certain apps or websites, but will also monitor messages, shared photo albums, AirDrop, and FaceTime calls for nudity. Apple didn't specify exactly which services and features are banned for under-18 users, but it will likely be in compliance with UK legislation...

The British government does not require Apple and other OS providers to institute device-level age checks, but it does restrict minor access to online pornography under the Online Safety Act, which passed in 2023. So far, that restriction has only been implemented at the website level, but UK officials have been worried about easy loopholes to evade the age restrictions, like VPNs.

The broader tech industry has been campaigning for some time to use device-level age checks instead in response to the rising tide of under-16 social media and internet bans around the world. Last month, in a landmark social media trial in California, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also supported this idea, saying that conducting age verification "at the level of the phone is just a lot clearer than having every single app out there have to do this separately." Pornhub-operator Aylo had advocated for device-level restrictions in the UK as well, and even sent out letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft in November asking for OS-level age verification...

The most obvious question: Could this be brought stateside?