Ofcom

Move over, TikTok, Ofcom, the U.K. regulator enforcing the now official Online Safety Act, is gearing up to size up an even bigger target: search engines like Google and Bing and the role that they play in presenting self-injury, suicide and other harmful content at the click of a button, particularly to underage users. A report commissioned by Ofcom and produced by the Network Contagion Research Institute found that major search engines, including Google, Microsoft’s Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and AOL become “one-click…

In one of the use cases of AI, the UK telecoms regulator Office of Communications (or Ofcom) has proposed new age-check guidance by the use of AI-based technology to block those underage from accessing pornographic sites.The UK recently passed the Online Safety Act which requires sites and apps that display or publish pornographic content to ensure that children are not able to access pornography on their service. “Regardless of their approach, we expect all services to offer robust protection to children from stumbling…

Ofcom, the UK’s Office of Communications, has published a draft of age-restriction guidelines for online services that host explicit sexual content. The (not yet finalized) recommendations are a step toward cementing enforcement for the recently passed Online Safety Act, which requires platforms displaying or publishing pornography in the UK to ensure children are “not normally able to encounter” adult content on their sites or apps. It’s the UK’s latest attempt to enforce age verification after it bailed on a similar…

Amazon and Microsoft, the two dominant cloud providers, face an antitrust investigation in Britain after the communications regulator said some aspects of the market, including fees to switch supplier, were a cause for concern. Ofcom, which started looking into cloud services last year, said it was particularly worried about the practices of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft because of their market positions, and planned to ask the competition regulator to investigate. Amazon and Microsoft have a combined market…

WhatsApp head Will Cathcart has reportedly refused to undermine the messaging platform's end-to-end encryption – a feature that the Meta-owned company has promoted innumerable times in the past – risking the company’s business in the UK. By taking this stand, it has joined the rival app Signal in essentially "pushing back" the UK's demand of "lowering the security" of the messaging service.As per a report by BBC, Cathcart said the company will rather be blocked in the UK than to weaken the privacy of encrypted messages…

Snapchat is kicking dozens of children in Britain off its platform each month compared with tens of thousands blocked by rival TikTok, according to internal data the companies shared with Britain's media regulator Ofcom and which Reuters has seen.Social media platforms such as Meta's Instagram, ByteDance's TikTok, and Snap's Snapchat require users to be at least 13 years old. These restrictions are intended to protect the privacy and safety of young children.Ahead of Britain's planned Online Safety Bill, aimed at…

The probe will focus on so-called "hyperscalers" like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, which let businesses access computing power and data storage from remote servers.Chesnot | Getty ImagesBritish media regulator Ofcom is investigating Amazon, Microsoft and Google's tight grip on the cloud computing industry.In the coming weeks, the watchdog will launch a study to examine the position of firms offering public cloud infrastructure and whether they pose any barriers to competition.Its probe, announced Thursday,…

The UK's communication regulator Ofcom announced a probe into the Cloud market dominance of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in the country's 15 billion pound Cloud services market and if the competition concerns are identified, it could lead to further action against the tech giants.Ofcom also kicked off a probe to look at digital services such as WhatsApp, Zoom and smart speakers, as online and traditional networks converge."The way we live, work, play, and do business has been transformed by digital services. But as the…

UK digital regulator Ofcom said it will launch a range of investigations into digital markets including cloud computing, internet messaging, and smart devices, marking another step up in the scrutiny of the world's largest tech firms.Ofcom, which also oversees broadcasting, telecommunications and the postal service, said it will first look at whether the so-called hyperscale cloud providers, Amazon's AWS, Microsoft's Azure, Alphabet's Google Cloud, might limit innovation and growth. They receive about 81 percent of the…

Alex Barker / Financial Times: Ofcom: in the UK, those aged 15-24 spent 57 minutes/day on TikTok in 2021, compared to 53 minutes/day watching TV; those 65 or over spent six hours watching TV — Ofcom survey points to challenges for traditional broadcasters in keeping pace with digital and streaming trends Alex Barker / Financial Times: Ofcom: in the UK, those aged 15-24 spent 57 minutes/day on TikTok in 2021, compared to 53 minutes/day watching TV; those 65 or over spent six hours watching TV …