Tesla CEO Elon Musk's lawyer has accused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or leaking information about a federal probe to retaliate against him, CNBC has reported. "It has become clearer and clearer that the Commission is out to retaliate against my clients for exercising their First Amendment rights—most recently by criticizing the Commission on the public docket and by petitioning this Court for relief," said Musk attorney Alex Spiro. 

It's the latest shot fired by Musk in his ongoing dispute with the SEC that started in 2018 when he said that he had secured funding for a private buyout of Tesla at $420 a share — something many (including the SEC) interpreted as an attempt at a weed joke. The SEC fined Tesla and Musk $20 million each over that and forced Musk to step down as chairman for at least three years. Tesla also had to implement a system for monitoring Musk's statements about the company on Twitter and other media. 

Musk has been chafing against those rules lately, however. Earlier this month he accused the SEC of conducting a "harassment campaign," and "stifling" has First Amendment free speech rights. The SEC responded earlier this week, saying its frequent check-ins with Tesla were effectively required by the court overseeing the 2018 settlement. It also rebutted Musk's other complaint, saying that it was making progress disbursing the $40 million fine to shareholders as it had promised. 

Musk's lawyers alleged that at least one SEC member had leaked "certain information regarding its investigation," but it didn't say who or which information. Tesla revealed in its 2021 Q4 earnings report that the SEC subpoenaed the company and Musk, seeking information on how they're complying with the 2018 settlement. 

Musk previously ran afoul of the 2018 settlement a year later after tweeting information about Tesla vehicle production that wasn't approved by the company's "disclosure counsel." His lawyers accused the SEC of violating his free speech rights then, too. Musk and Tesla eventually agreed to a revised settlement that required him to get approval in advance for any tweets or other communication from an "experienced securities lawyer."  

The US Copyright Office has once again denied an effort to copyright a work of art that was created by an artificial intelligence system. Dr. Stephen Thaler attempted to copyright a piece of art titled A Recent Entrance to Paradise, claiming in a second request for reconsideration of a 2019 ruling that the USCO's “human authorship” requirement was unconstitutional.

In its latest ruling, which was spotted by The Verge, the agency accepted that the work was created by an AI, which Thaler calls the Creativity Machine. Thaler applied to register the work as "as a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine.”

However, the office said that current copyright law only offers protections to "the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the [human] mind.” As such, a copyrighted work "must be created by a human being” and the office says it won't register works “produced by a machine or mere mechanical process” that lack intervention or creative input from a human author.

The agency said Thaler failed to provide evidence that A Recent Entrance to Paradise is the result of human authorship. It also stated he was unable to convince the USCO's "to depart from a century of copyright jurisprudence" — in other words, to change the rules. 

The ruling notes that courts at several levels, including the Supreme Court, have "uniformly limited copyright protection to creations of human authors" and that lower courts have "repeatedly rejected attempts to extend copyright protection to non-human creations," such as for photos taken by monkeys.

Thaler has put copyright and patent laws to the test in a number of countries. He has attempted to have an AI called DABUS recognized as the inventor of two products in patent applications. The US Patent and Trademark Office, UK Intellectual Property Office and European Patent Office rejected the applications because the credited inventor wasn't human. Appeals have been filed against those rulings and ones in Australia and Germany.

However, a judge in Australia ruled last year that AI-created inventions can qualify for patent protection. South Africa granted Thaler a patent for one of the products last year and noted "the invention was autonomously generated by an artificial intelligence."

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has responded to Elon Musk’s harassment allegations. In a letter it filed on Friday with a New York federal judge, the SEC said its frequent check-ins with Tesla were consistent with expectations from the court overseeing the company’s 2018 settlement.

At the time, Tesla had agreed its lawyers would preclear some of Musk’s tweets after one of his messages drew the attention of the SEC. The specific tweet saw Musk say that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 a share. Following an investigation, the SEC alleged the message constituted fraud, with Tesla and Musk eventually agreeing to settle the case for $40 million.

But within less than a year later, the SEC suspected Musk of not complying with his part of the agreement, according to The Wall Street Journal. In 2019 and 2020, the agency’s lawyers wrote to Tesla to ask why some of Musk’s tweets about the company’s production numbers and stock price weren’t cleared by its lawyers. Tesla claimed those statements weren’t covered by the settlement policy.

Tesla accused the SEC this week of using its resources to conduct “endless, unfounded investigations” into the company and its CEO. It also alleges the regulator broke its promise to distribute the $40 million settlement to Tesla shareholders, a claim the SEC disputes. In the letter it filed on Friday, the agency said it was working on a plan to pay shareholders and would have more details to share by March. As for the “endless” investigations, the agency said it has “sought to meet and confer with counsel for Tesla and Mr. Musk to address any concerns regarding Tesla and Mr. Musk’s compliance.”

It’s unclear what happens next now that the SEC has responded to Tesla’s allegations. The Journal reports US District Judge Alison Nathan has asked the two sides to work through their dispute rather than push for the court to intervene in the matter.

Whistleblower Aid says it has filed complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission that accuse Meta of misleading investors about efforts to mitigate climate change and COVID-19 misinformation across its platforms. The nonprofit, which represents Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen, claimed the company made “material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors” over how it was handling misinformation, according to The Washington Post, which viewed redacted copies of the documents.

“The documents shared with the SEC make it totally clear that Facebook was saying one thing in private and another in public regarding its approach to climate change and COVID-19 misinformation,” Whistleblower Aid senior counsel Andrew Bakaj told Engadget. “That’s not just irresponsible to the public, it’s actively misleading investors who have a legal right to truthful answers from the company.”

In one of the filings, which were based on disclosures by Haugen, Whistleblower Aid reportedly claimed that Meta didn't have a clear policy on climate change misinformation until last year. The complaint alleges that such misinformation was abundant on Facebook, despite assertions from executives to investors that the company was committed to battling the "global crisis," according to The Post.

In the other complaint, the nonprofit reportedly cited internal documents showing that COVID-19 misinformation and vaccine hesitancy proliferated on Facebook. That's despite Meta executives making public comments about measures it was taking to stem the spread of COVID-19 misinformation.

Since 2020, Meta has offered factual information about COVID-19 and climate change in its information centers.

The company has long struggled to stem the flow of misinformation on Facebook and its other platforms. Documents supplied to news organizations by Haugen last year led credence to critics' arguments that the company puts profits before user safety. In September, it was reported that the company gave misinformation researchers incomplete data.

“We’ve directed more than 2 billion people to authoritative public health information and continue to remove false claims about vaccines, conspiracy theories and misinformation," Meta spokesperson Drew Pusateri told Engadget. "We’ve also created our Climate Science Center in over 150 countries to connect people to factual and up-to-date climate information, while also partnering with independent fact checkers to address false claims. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to stopping the spread of misinformation, but we’re committed to building new tools and policies to combat it.”

Meta is once again settling a privacy complaint, but this one reaches back — way back. As Varietyreports, the company has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a 2012 class action lawsuit accusing the company of violating users' privacy. Facebook allegedly overstepped its bounds in 2010 and 2011 by using tracking cookies that monitored browsing after users signed out, despite promises to the contrary.

The settlement is still pending approval in a Northern District of California court. Attorneys at DiCello Levitt Gutzler were confident, however, following a 2020 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that turned the case in their favor. Facebook needed consent for the data collection, the appeals court said, and unlawful use of personal data created "economic harm" even when the data's value remained intact. Meta had succeeded three times in court before the 2020 opinion. The Supreme Court declined to hear Meta's appeal of the Ninth Circuit ruling.

A Meta spokesperson emphasized the age of the case in a statement to Variety, saying it was in the company's "best interest" to settle and "move past this issue." This is the seventh largest privacy- or breach-related in the US, according to the law firm, with another Facebook case (a $650 million payout over facial recognition) topping the chart.

The settlement won't materially affect your privacy when the issues are long in the past. You also shouldn't expect a significant reward if you can make a claim — class actions like this rarely lead to windfalls for affected users, especially when Facebook has so many members. With that said, the outcome is a reminder that Facebook's privacy issues have existed for a long time, and continue to this day.

US regulators are making it clear crypto companies must follow conventional rules. Crypto lender BlockFi has settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission over charges the company allegedly offered interest accounts without registering them under the Securities Act. The company will pay $100 million in penalties, including $50 million to settle charges from 32 states.

BlockFi has also agreed to register for the sale of a new product, Yield, and has promised to comply with SEC rules in the next 60 days. The company was reportedly selling unregistered crypto interest accounts from March 2019 until today, and made "false and misleading" claims about the risks from lending.

In a blog post, BlockFi cast the settlement as a form of victory. The company saw this as providing "increased regulatory clarity" that helped it and the industry move forward. US-based customers of its internet accounts won't be allowed to add new assets until BlockFi Yield is registered, at which point their accounts will switch over.

The charges and settlement are the SEC's first levelled against a crypto lender, and reflect a clear goal: the Commission is willing to accept these services as long as they honor rules deemed applicable. The move also comes in sync with a broader effort by American officials to clarify the legal status of crypto assets. BlockFi's fate, in that regard, might help other crypto businesses start on a better footing.

Meta’s past use of facial recognition technology has once again landed the company in potential legal trouble. On Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging it had collected the biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining their informed consent to do so. At the center of the case is Facebook’s now discontinued use of facial recognition technology. The platform previously employed the technology as part of its “tag suggestions” feature, which used image recognition to scan photos and automatically tag users in them.

Last November, Meta shut down that system, citing, among other reasons, “uncertainty” about how the technology would be regulated in the future. The year before, the company paid $650 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged it had violated an Illinois privacy law that requires companies to obtain “explicit” consent before collecting biometric data from users.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Texas sent a civil subpoena to Meta after the outcome of the Illinois lawsuit was announced. The state is reportedly seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in civil penalties. The Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act stipulates Texas can levy a penalty of up to $25,000 per violation of the law. According to the attorney general’s complaint, at least 20 million Texans used Facebook in 2021.

“Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one’s safety and well-being,” Attorney General Paxton said. “This is yet another example of Big Tech’s deceitful business practices and it must stop. I will continue to fight for Texans’ privacy and security.”

“These claims are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously,” a spokesperson for Meta told Engadget.

Meta isn’t the only big tech company that’s in a court battle with Texas. In 2020, Paxton’s office filed a multi-state lawsuit against Google centered on the company’s ad business. Last month, Google asked a judge to dismiss that suit. “AG Paxton’s allegations are more heat than light, and we don’t believe they meet the legal standard to send this case to trial,” Adam Cohen, Google’s director of economic policy, said at the time. “The complaint misrepresents our business, products and motives, and we are moving to dismiss it based on its failure to offer plausible antitrust claims.”

The non-fungible token market is full of shady dealings, and British authorities hope to clean them up. BBC Newsreports HM Revenue and Customs has seized three NFTs as part of investigation into potential tax fraud. The suspects allegedly used 250 fake companies, false identities, prepaid phones, VPNs and other techniques to hide themselves as they sought to defraud the UK tax office of £1.4 million (nearly $1.9 million).

HMRC obtained a court order to take the unvalued NFTs as well as crypto assets worth roughly £5,000 ($6,760). This is the first time UK law enforcement has seized NFTs, the authority said.

The investigation is still ongoing. However, economic crime deputy director Nick Sharp believed the seizures would "serve as a warning" to other would-be crypto fraud perpetrators.

The lack of regulations and other protections around NFTs has led to significant problems with fraud and scams, including self-sales to boost prices (aka wash trading) and fake or plagiarized tokens. Cent recently halted most transactions due to "rampant" sales of bogus tokens, while marketplace giant OpenSea has been scrambling to develop safeguards after 80 percent of NFTs minted through a free tool were discovered to be fakes, copies or spam. Don't be surprised if there are more seizures like this one, at least until NFT marketplace owners have more ways to discourage fraud and other harmful activities.

A legal rights group has sued Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to force his government to publish the agreement that allowed Twitter to return to the West African country last month following a seven-month ban. In June 2021, Nigeria suspended Twitter after the company removed a tweet from President Buhari that threatened punishment for local dissidents. At the time, Twitter said it was “deeply concerned” by the country’s actions, noting it considered an open internet as “an essential human right in modern society.”

On January 13th, Nigeria lifted the ban after the company agreed, among other conditions, to open a local office and work with the government to co-develop a code of conduct. On Sunday, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) filed a lawsuit with the country’s High Court to compel President Buhari and Information Minister Lai Mohammed to publish a copy of that agreement.

“Publishing the agreement with Twitter would promote transparency, accountability, and help to mitigate threats to Nigerians’ rights online, as well as any interference with online privacy and freedom of expression,” SERAP said. “Any agreement with social media companies must meet the constitutional requirements of legality, necessity, proportionality and legitimacy.”

SERAP said it had attempted to obtain a copy of the agreement through a freedom of information request. It’s suing partly because the government came back with an “unsatisfactory” response to that request. Minister Mohammed allegedly told the group details on the arrangement were already “in the public space,” and did not forward a copy of its terms.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment.

As Reuters notes, SERAP was among several groups that went to court to fight Nigeria’s ban of Twitter. The Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States is scheduled to decide whether to rule on that case this week.

Google is facing more antitrust pressure in the EU over its advertising tech. Reutersreports the European Publishers Council (EPC) has filed an EU complaint against Google alleging the company has an illegal "stranglehold" on ad tech and the press. The Internet giant's ad suite is claimed to be "rife with conflicts of interests" as it not only represents the buyer, seller and auction house, but supposedly exploits that control to profit at the expense of its customers.

Council Chairman Christian Van Thillo saw the complaint as prompting the EU to take action where it was otherwise reluctant. The move should make Google "actually change" its behavior after years of "minor commitments" that don't provide any substantial impact, Van Thillo said. The EPC pointed to antitrust cases in multiple countries to support its case, including a multi-state US lawsuit.

The EU began its newest probe into Google's ad business in June 2021. It shares the EPC's general concerns about potential abuse. It didn't set a deadline for the investigation, however, and has already fined Google three times over its ad practices. Antitrust hunts like these can take years to wind down, and the complaint theoretically accelerates the process.

In a statement, Google argued companies enjoyed its ad tech but didn't address the unfair competition issues. Publishers keep the "majority of revenue," which climbs to "billions" of US dollars, a representative said.

There's no certainty the EPC complaint will prompt the EU to demand significant changes to Google's ad policies. It might ramp up the pressure on Google to act, however, even if it's just to minimize any potential penalties.