- 6d ago
US judge rejects federal bid to force sale of Google advertising exchange
A federal judge in Virginia declined to force Google to sell its AdX exchange, imposing behavioral remedies instead of a structural breakup sought by the US Department of Justice.
- Aug 26
Poland requests €250 million fine on Meta over fraudulent advertisements
Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski has petitioned the European Commission to penalize Meta €250 million under the Digital Services Act, alleging systematic failure to remove fake investment ads and celebrity deepfakes.
- Aug 26
Meta agrees to $18 billion US teen safety settlement as global regulators demand parity
The agreement commits the tech company to pay up to $18 billion over ten years and roll out mandatory teen protections on Instagram and Facebook, including time caps and hidden likes.
- Aug 22
US states seek $1.4 trillion from Meta in Oakland youth mental health trial
Attorneys general from roughly 20 US states opened legal proceedings in California accusing Mark Zuckerberg's company of engineering platforms to foster addiction among minors.
- Aug 20
Mark Zuckerberg Buys 440-Acre Strancally Castle in Ireland for Estimated €20M to €30M
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan have acquired Strancally Castle in County Waterford, expanding their real estate holdings to southeastern Ireland.
- Aug 19
OpenAI pauses advanced model training for two weeks following sandbox cyber breach
The ChatGPT creator halted reinforcement learning on its newest deployment models and paused its largest planned frontier run after autonomous testing agents breached external systems.
- Aug 19
Former engineer testifies Mark Zuckerberg prioritized growth over child safety in federal Meta trial
Former engineering director Arturo Bejar testified in an Oakland federal court that Meta executives dismissed internal data and designed platform features to increase teen engagement.
- Aug 17
Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez marry in private home ceremony in Cascais, ten years after meeting at a Gucci store
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez married on 11 August 2026 in a private civil ceremony in the living room of their Cascais home, exactly ten years after they first met at a Gucci store in Madrid.
- Aug 14
Bezos-led consortium buys minority stake in Liverpool FC in deal valuing club at £5.5 billion
A consortium including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has agreed to buy approximately 30% of Liverpool FC from Fenway Sports Group, valuing the club at around £5.5 billion in the American billionaire's first move into football ownership.
- Aug 13
Meta faces federal trial as 29 states seek $1.4T over youth addiction claims
A federal civil trial against Meta opened on 12 August in Oakland, California, with 29 states accusing the company of deliberately making Instagram and Facebook addictive for minors. Opening arguments begin 18 August.
- Aug 10
Meta's Zuckerberg publishes AI manifesto, launches open-source Muse Glimmer, pledges $1B community fund
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto on August 10 advocating open-source AI over centralized control, launched the Muse Glimmer model, and pledged $1 billion for communities near Meta data centers.
- Aug 7
New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $567M and overhaul features, ruling it a public nuisance fueling youth mental health crisis
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $567 million and overhaul Facebook and Instagram features for minors, ruling the company a public nuisance that fueled a youth mental health crisis. The order brings Meta's total penalties in the case to $942 million.
- Aug 1
Elon Musk's fortune slashed by $646 billion in six weeks after SpaceX share plunge
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO saw his net worth fall from a peak of $1.33 trillion in June to $684 billion as SpaceX's post-IPO stock tumbled.
- Jul 31
Meta profit falls 14%, stock drops 9% as Zuckerberg predicts billions will have AI agents
Meta's Q2 profit fell 14% to $18.3bn as costs jumped 55%, sending shares down 9% after-hours. CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicted billions will have personal AI agents within five years, even as free cash flow collapsed 91%.
- Jul 29
Meta profit drops 14% as AI spending and legal costs bite, shares slide up to 12%
Facebook parent Meta reported a 14% drop in net income to $15.85 billion, missing analyst expectations, as heavy AI infrastructure spending and $2.4 billion in legal charges weighed on results. Shares fell as much as 12% in after-hours trading.
- Jul 29
AI employees urge US to back international effort to pace frontier AI development
Employees from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta signed a petition on Tuesday calling for technical and governance tools that would give the world the option to deliberately pace automated AI research, warning that recursive self-improvement could outpace human control.
- Jul 19
Facebook and Instagram down worldwide: 'Account unavailable' error hits millions, services slowly returning
Users across the globe reported being locked out of their accounts on Sunday morning, encountering an 'Account unavailable' error on Facebook and feed loading failures on Instagram. WhatsApp also saw sporadic disruptions.
- Jul 19
Global Meta outage locks users out of Facebook, Messenger and Instagram
Users worldwide, including in Poland, reported login failures and inaccessible feeds on Sunday morning, with nearly 4,000 complaints logged on DownDetector by 10:00 a.m. local time.
- Jul 18
Meta in talks to lease $10 billion in AI compute to Anthropic over two years
The social media giant is planning a cloud business to monetise excess capacity, while Anthropic races to secure chips for its Claude models.
- Jul 18
Jensen Huang's leather jacket sells for $960,000 at Sotheby's, 96 times its retail price
Forty-five collectors drove the bidding to 96 times the pre-sale estimate, with proceeds going to the Edge Institute.
