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Google was on Tuesday hit with an EU antitrust investigation over its use of online content for AI purposes, marking the latest in a series of crackdowns from the bloc on regulating U.S. big tech companies. 

The European Commission said it was investigating whether Google had breached EU competition rules by using the content of web publishers, as well as content uploaded on the online video-sharing platform YouTube, for AI purposes.

The probe will examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to that content and placing developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage, the Commission said. 

“AI is bringing remarkable innovation and many benefits for people and businesses across Europe, but this progress cannot come at the expense of the principles at the heart of our societies,” said the bloc’s commissioner for competition Teresa Ribera.

“This is why we are investigating whether Google may have imposed unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, while placing rival AI models developers at a disadvantage, in breach of EU competition rules.”

The Commission said it would investigate to what extent the generation of AI Overviews and AI Mode by Google is based on web publishers’ content without appropriate compensation and without the possibility for publishers to refuse without losing access to Google Search.

“This complaint risks stifling innovation in a market that is more competitive than ever,” a Google spokesperson told CNBC. “Europeans deserve to benefit from the latest technologies and we will continue to work closely with the news and creative industries as they transition to the AI era.”

In September, the EU fined Google nearly 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) for breaching antitrust rules by distorting competition in the advertising technology industry.

At the time, Google’s global head of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland said the EU decision was “wrong” and the firm would appeal. “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” she said.

EU vs. U.S. big tech

The move follows a slew of actions the bloc has taken against U.S big tech companies in recent days. 

The Commission hit Elon Musk’s social media app X with a 120-million-euro ($140 million) fine on Friday for breaching transparency obligations around its advertising repository and “the deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark.’”

Musk called for the European Union to be abolished in response, with key Republican officials also criticizing the decision.

Last week the EU also announced it had opened an antitrust investigation into Meta over its new policy on allowing AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, which it said may breach the bloc’s competition rules.

Google Cloud announced Thursday a multi-year partnership with artificial intelligence coding startup Replit, giving the search giant fresh firepower against the coding products of rivals, including Anthropic and Cursor. 

Under the partnership, Replit will expand usage of Google Cloud services, add more of Google’s models onto its platform, and support AI coding use cases for enterprise customers.

Google will continue to be Replit’s primary cloud provider. 

“The goal for us, and Google, is to make enterprise vibe-coding a thing,” Replit founder and CEO Amjad Masad said. “We want to show the world that these tools are actually going to transform businesses and how people work. Instead of people working in silos, designers only doing design, product managers only write … now anyone in the company can be entrepreneurial.”

Replit, founded nearly a decade ago, is a leader in the fast-growing AI vibe-coding space.

In September, the startup closed a $250 million funding round that almost tripled its valuation to $3 billion, and said it grew annualized revenue from $2.8 million to $150 million in less than a year. 

And new data from Ramp, a fintech company that also tracks enterprise spending on its platform, found that Replit had the fastest new customer growth among software vendors. Google, meanwhile, is adding new customers and spending faster than any other company on Ramp’s platform.

The Somerville Interim Climate Action Commission discussed securing TESI funding from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources to support energy upgrades in schools, aiming for significant reductions in fossil fuel usage, and explored ways to improve public engagement about the City’s climate initiatives.

“Fiddler on the Roof,” a co-production of the Alliance Theatre and the Atlanta Opera, is a spectacular musical based on Sholem Aleichem’s stories, with a superb cast and creative team, and is running at the Alliance through October 12.

Meta is suing the Hong Kong-based maker of the app CrushAI, a platform capable of creating sexually explicit deepfakes, claiming that it repeatedly circumvented the social media company’s rules to purchase ads.

The suit is part of what Meta (META) described as a wider effort to crack down on so-called “nudifying” apps — which allow users to create nude or sexualized images from a photo of someone’s face, even without their consent — following claims that the social media giant was failing to adequately address ads for those services on its platforms.

As of February, the maker of CrushAI, also known as Crushmate and by several other names, had run more than 87,000 ads on Meta platforms that violated its rules, according to the complaint Meta filed in Hong Kong district court Thursday.

Meta alleges the app maker, Joy Timeline HK Limited, violated its rules by creating a network of at least 170 business accounts on Facebook or Instagram to buy the ads. The app maker also allegedly had more than 55 active users managing over 135 Facebook pages where the ads were displayed. The ads primarily targeted users in the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom.

“Everyone who creates an account on Facebook or uses Facebook must agree to the Meta Terms of Service,” the complaint states.CNN has reached out to Joy Timeline HK Limited for comment on the lawsuit.

Meta is taking legal action against CrushAI, a Hong Kong-based app known for creating explicit deepfakes, after it repeatedly violated Meta’s advertising rules. The lawsuit highlights Meta’s ongoing struggle to prevent such apps from using its platforms to spread harmful content. Despite efforts to enforce its policies, CrushAI managed to run over 87,000 ads targeting users in several countries. Meta’s complaint reveals the app maker used a network of accounts to bypass restrictions, emphasizing the challenge of policing AI-driven content. The company is developing new technology to detect these ads and collaborating with other platforms to combat the issue.

A team from the University of Texas is developing innovative drone technology to detect and extinguish wildfires as part of the International XPRIZE Wildfire Competition.

The University of Texas team is developing a drone-based system to autonomously detect and suppress wildfires.

“We’re going to build fixed wing drones that carry smaller drones that they deploy the packet with high precision,” explained a member of the University of Texas team. “We also want to use some of the commercial drones in order to do very fast detection.” edit th

The Austin Fire Department reported responding to 3,000 wildfires in 2022 and 2,000 in 2023, highlighting the ongoing threat of wildfires in the region. Despite the lack of an active summer wildfire season so far this year, officials warn of the potential for year-round fire risks.

The Texas A&M Forest Service does not own any firefighting aircraft and relies on federal resources, which can lead to delays when aircraft are engaged in other parts of the country. This dependency underscores the importance of developing new technologies for rapid wildfire response.

The University of Texas team’s project is still in the competition phase, and while it remains uncertain how far they will advance, their focus is on transforming wildfire management beyond the competition.

As the University of Texas team continues to refine their drone technology, they hope to revolutionize wildfire detection and suppression, potentially enhancing safety for communities at risk of wildfires.

This is AI content policy adjusted text.