The Trump Administration Vs European Tech Legislation: A Closer Look – Part IV
Introduction EU regulations have imposed fines totalling €1.2 billion on U.S. tech companies in 2025 alone. These include €200 million against Meta, €500 million against Apple, and €530 million against TikTok. Furthermore, companies face substantial compliance costs and significant penalty exposure. As a result, US tech firms have had to undertake major operational overhauls including in […]
Germany’s Deepseek Demand: A Closer Look at Data Transfer Concerns
Introduction On June 27, 2025, Germany’s data protection commissioner, Meike Kamp, took a significant step by requesting that Apple and Google remove the Chinese AI app DeepSeek from their app stores in Germany. This action stems from concerns that DeepSeek is unlawfully transferring user data to China, violating the European Union’s stringent data protection regulations. […]
The Trump Administration Vs European Tech Legislation: A Closer Look – Part III
Introduction On June 27, 2025, President Trump suspended trade negotiations with Canada. This action targeted Canada’s proposed Digital Services Tax. President Trump characterized this tax as an attack on American innovation. Furthermore, he threatened retaliatory tariffs in response. This dispute reflects a broader strategic pattern, with the Trump administration viewing international digital regulations not as […]
The Trump Administration vs European Tech Legislation: A Closer Look – Part II
In Part 1, we analysed the EU’s early regulatory efforts in the 2010s to curb US tech giants’ dominance through privacy and antitrust laws, setting the stage for transatlantic tensions. In this part, Ronin Legal traces the EU’s evolving tech regulations from 2020 onward, examining the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Digital Services Act (DSA), digital […]
The Trump Administration vs European Tech Legislation: A Closer Look – Part I
On January 23, 2025, President Donald Trump criticized the European Union at the World Economic Forum in Davos, stating, “They took billions from Apple and Google through the courts, and now they’re after Facebook for billions. These are American companies the EU is taxing unfairly.” This accusation reflects a growing clash between US tech giants […]
VARA 2.0, Tokenisation and the Future of Digital Assets: A Closer Look
The Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), established in 2022 under Law No. (4) of 2022 Regulating Virtual Assets in Dubai, serves as the dedicated regulator for virtual assets across the Emirate of Dubai. Operating as an affiliate of the Dubai World Trade Centre Authority, VARA is mandated to regulate, supervise, and oversee all Virtual Asset […]
OpenAI Enters Social Media: A Closer Look
In 2025, an unexpected player is stepping into the world of social media – OpenAI. The company is reportedly prototyping a new social feed tied to its image generator, as part of a broader move to scale multimodal AI by doing what competitors like Meta and X have already been doing for a while now. […]
The TAKE IT DOWN Act: A Closer Look
In April 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, a bipartisan effort to curb the growing threat of AI-generated deepfake pornography. Officially, the Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act, it’s poised to reshape how the U.S. tackles nonconsensual intimate visual depictions (NCII). […]
Elon Musk Buys Twitter from Himself to Save It
On March 28, 2025, Elon Musk announced that his artificial intelligence venture, xAI, had acquired his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), in an all-stock deal. The transaction values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, factoring in $12 billion of X’s debt. It’s a move that ties Musk’s AI aspirations to X’s […]
The Wrath of Khan: Technology, M&A and the Federal Trade Commission
Did Lina Khan, former firebrand chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), lose Silicon Valley for the Democrats in the last US presidential election? Did her hard-line approach so offend an industry accustomed to light touch regulation that it turned away from its traditional Democratic leanings and into the waiting arms of Donald Trump? The […]
