From the signing of the contentious Defamation Bill, 2024 into law in Pakistan to LinkedIn dropping its personalised ads tool in the European Union (EU), here’s everything we covered at Digital Rights Monitor (DRM) this week.
PAKISTAN: Controversial defamation bill signed into law
The Defamation Bill, 2024, which was passed last month by the Punjab Assembly despite strong opposition, has been signed into law, according to a report by Geo News.
The controversial piece of legislation became a flashpoint for contention between the Punjab government and the bill’s opponents — including journalists, digital rights advocates, and members of the Opposition — after it was approved on May 20. The bill’s passage elicited strong resistance from the media, with journalists present in the press gallery in the assembly walking out to register their protest.
A furore had broken out in the assembly premises after all proposed amendments to the bill were rejected. Copies of the legislation were shredded by members of the Opposition, mainly the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and other stakeholders. Journalists termed the legislation “a curb on free media”.
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EU: LinkedIn drops targeted ads tool to comply with tech rules
LinkedIn, a popular employment-based online platform owned by Microsoft, has stopped using a tool aimed at targeted advertising in the European Union (EU), according to a post by LinkedIn’s Vice President Patrick Corrigan.
The tool collected personal data of users for deployment of personalised advertisements. LinkedIn is, however, disabling the tool to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
The DSA obliges leading social networking platform to place stricter measures to protect data privacy, prevent child sexual exploitation, and tackle other forms of potentially harmful material. Under the DSA, online platforms with over 45 million monthly active users are labelled as “very large platforms”. Violations of the law could result in penalties worth up to six per cent of a company’s yearly turnover.
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TURKEY: Google fined over antitrust practices
Google has been fined $14.58 million by the Turkish competition regulator over antitrust practices related to hotel searches in the country.
The fine, imposed on the search engine giant on Monday, came in response to what the watchdog said was Google’s failure to abide by regulatory obligations related to hotel searches on the internet. Google’s dominance over online search for hotels in the country impeded fair competition with other local search engines, according to the competition board.
“Despite Google’s dominant position in the general search services market, it makes it difficult for competitors to operate and distorts competition in the local search services and accommodation price comparison services markets by preventing rival local search sites from entering its service,” the regulator said in a written statement, as carried by Turkish news outlet Hürriyet Daily News.
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US: Lawsuit accuses Apple of ‘systematically’ underpaying women
A new lawsuit has accused tech giant Apple of “systematically” underpaying women workers in similar jobs as men in California. The class-action suit was filed Thursday in a state court in San Francisco, United States (US).
The complaint, initiated by two women who have been working at Apple for more than 10 years, claims the company pays over 12,000 women less than men in its marketing, engineering, and AppleCare divisions. Apple decides starting salaries for women based on their previous pay or “pay expectations”. This leads to lower pay framework for women at the company, the lawsuit states, adding that Apple’s performance evaluation system is biased against women.
In response to the lawsuit, the Apple unit based in California, claimed that the company is dedicated to promoting inclusion and ensuring pay equity. “Since 2017, Apple has achieved and maintained gender pay equity and every year we partner with an independent third-party expert to examine each team member’s total compensation and make adjustments, where necessary, to ensure that we maintain pay equity,” Apple stated, according to a report by Reuters.
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