“[The lack of transposition] does not correspond with the actual threat." 

•  MEP and former rapporteur of NIS2 Bart Groothuis told Euractiv. 

Story of the week: The Commission announced on Thursday (17 October) that most member states failed to transpose the EU directive strengthening standard cybersecurity measures across Europe, NIS2.  Differences in the scope, certifications, standards used, and implementation deadlines of the transposed and proposed national laws mean that requirements will not be coordinated across member states as envisioned for some time. (Read more)

Don’t miss:  The research community rallied to protect expert councils but otherwise echoed the European Commission's talking points after a briefing on the expert report on the Commission’s flagship research and innovation (R&I) programme, Horizon Europe, published on Wednesday (16 October). The long-awaited reportcalls for a more than doubling of the budget to €220 billion, “radical simplification” of R&I funding and more funding allocated by independent councils in FP10, the successor of Horizon Europe. (Read more)

Also this week: 

• European Commission demands information from Temu over illegal goods 
• Key stakeholders criticise Commission’s top-down Competitiveness Fund plans 
• Deutsche Telekom tells policymakers it is struggling, but investors it is thriving 
• Academia rallies against considered competitiveness fund but aligns with Commission priorities 
• Toy industry cautions on safety of products sold in online marketplaces 
• X not a gatekeeper under the DMA, concludes the Commission 
• French NGOs sue public body over scoring algorithm 

The Tech Brief is changing! Stay tuned Monday morning for more information.

Benifei, McNamara lead EU Parliament’s AI working group. As reported by Euronews on Wednesday, and confirmed to Euractiv, the Parliament’s AI working group, which oversees the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act by the Commission, will be co-chaired by Italian MEP and former AI Act co-rapporteur Brando Benifei (S&D) and Irish, freshly elected MEP Michale McNamara (Renew). Benifei represents the LIBE committee and McNamara IMCO. JURI should also join the group. 

Parliament elections disinformation. Vice-President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová described Russian involvement and a spike in disinformation two weeks before the parliament elections, but overall found few signs of the influence of disinformation, cyberattacks and AI. Yet “the impact of disinformation is huge," Jourová said during a speech last week.

TikTok layoffs. TikTok fired “less than 500” employees in Malaysia to shift focus towards greater use of AI in content moderation, Reutersreported. 

Amodei’s techno-dream. CEO of leading AI lab, Anthropic Dario Amodei, published a 13,000-word essay on his vision of how great AI could make the future on Friday.

Nuclear-powered AI. After Microsoft and Google, Amazon announced on Wednesday that it signed three agreements in the US with companies producing nuclear energy to address its growing demand for AI-led energy. 

Merging of the minds. Google’s Gemini team is moving under DeepMind as the company continues to streamline operations, CEO Sundar Pichai said in a Thursday blog post. 

Mistral AI phone and laptop models. The French AI company announced on Wednesday it is launching AI models that can run on laptops and phones.

Murati OpenAI-spinoff.According to The Information, ex-CTO Mira Murati has been speaking to OpenAI employees about joining her next venture, not disclosing what the venture is.

Worldcoin rebrand. Sam Altman’s Worldcoin, a crypto identity project, rebranded to World Network and is doubling down on its mission to scan people’s irises to create a unique cryptographically secured digital identity, along with a new Nvidia-outfitted device, Axiosreported on Thursday. 

Commercially safe. Adobe launched what they called “the first publicly available video model designed to be commercially safe” trained on licensed content on Monday.

ASML slump. Critical chipmaking machines producer and Europe’s third-most valuable company ASML’s share price has lost almost 15% of its value this week after the company lowered its sales forecast for the year in earnings released on Tuesday. 

NYT v AI. The New York Times has sent generative AI startup Perplexity a “cease and desist” notice demanding that the firm stop accessing and using its content, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has a copy of the letter. The NYT is still embroiled in a copyright infringement lawsuit with OpenAI.

Telegram Nudifies. Wired reported to have found 50 bots with more than four million monthly users that can “remove clothes” from photos or create images depicting people in various sexual acts. “The snapshot, which largely encompasses English-language bots, is likely a small portion of the overall deepfake bots on Telegram,” they write.

Saudi and China. Professor Sir Edward Byrne, the head of Saudi Arabia’s premier academic institutions, pledge to limit collaboration with China on AI in an interview on the FT on Wednesday. 

French NIS2 transposition kick-off. Clara Chappaz, the new State Secretary in charge of AI and digital policy, presented the NIS2 transposition bill on Wednesday (15 October) in a Cabinet meeting. France missed Thursday’s transposition deadline, partly because of the June legislative snap elections. 

Scoring algorithm under fire. Fifteen French NGOs are suing the public body that distributes allowances for families, youth, housing, and inclusion (CNAF) at the French state council over the use of a risk-scoring algorithm, which impacts almt half of France's population, according to a Wednesday press release. Read more.

TikTok’s stash. TikTok has set aside $1 billion (€922 million) for privacy fines in the EU, the firm said in a Friday filing with UK authorities, according to Forbes. The firm’s revenues also increased by almost 75% year-on-year in 2023, but operating losses also almost doubled, the filing shows.  

X not gatekeeper. After a five-month market investigation, the European Commission concluded on Wednesday that X was not a "gatekeeper" under the EU's online antitrust law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Read more. 

Temu request. The Commission demanded information from Temu over illegal goods last Friday regarding traders selling illegal goods on its marketplace under the online safety regulation Digital Services Act (DSA), according to a press release. Read more.

Toy industry on product safety. Some 80% of toys sold by third-party sellers on online marketplaces do not meet EU safety standards, according to Toys Industry Europe (TIE), following the publication of a study on Thursday. Read more.

Commission v Musk inc. The EU Commission warned X that it may calculate fines against the social media platform by including revenue from Elon Musk’s other businesses, Bloombergreported on Thursday. 

Competitiveness fund critics. The European Commission is considering a mega-fund for research and innovation (R&I), but critical stakeholders say the loss of autonomy for individual funding projects is the opposite of what is needed. Read more.

€220b R&I call. The long-awaited interim evaluation of Horizon Europe, the Commission’s flagship research and innovation program, called for increased funding from €93.5 billion to €220 billion, “radical simplification” of R&I funding and more funding allocated by independent councils in FP10, the successor of Horizon Europe. Read More.

Cancelled ITRE meeting. A meeting of the European Parliament’s ITRE committee was cancelled on Thursday morning over scheduling issues between Hungarian Innovation Minister Balázs Hankó, Energy Minister of State Attila Steiner, and Commissioner of the Hungarian presidency Zoltán Kovács, a Hungarian presidency spokesperson told Euractiv.

UK strategy. Ahead of its International Investment Summit, the UK launched its first industrial strategy in seven years and appointed Clare Barclay, CEO of Microsoft UK, as chair of a new Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, the government said in a press release on Sunday.

Layoffs at Hikvision. The US-sanctioned Chinese video surveillance company is laying off over 1,000 employees from its R&D department as it grapples with geopolitical and economic headwinds, SCMPreported on Monday. The firm denied the report. 

Booster catch. In SpaceX’s starship’s fifth flight test, the company successfully managed to catch the booster of the rocket after launch, further deepening the discrepancy between US and EU industries. 

French court blocks four porn websites. On Thursday, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered the complete blocking of non-EU-based pornographic websites (Tukif, Xhamster, Mrsexe and Iciporno) over allegations that they did not provide appropriate safeguards to restrict access to children. The order should enter into force in 15 days. The Court referred to the Court of Justice of the EU for a preliminary ruling before issuing a ruling on EU-based websites like Pornhub or Youporn.  

Credit cards as age verification tool. France’s content moderation authority, Arcom, published on Friday its age verification framework. Porn websites will be allowed to use credit cards as a temporary age verification tool from 11 January to 11 April 2025.

Banks v social media. Bank industry association UK Finance is calling on social media companies to do more to protect users from card fraud, the FTreported on Thursday. David Geale, interim managing director of the Payment Systems Regulator, backed their arguments in a Monday interview. 

Ads embargo. Google plans to block election ads on all platforms after polls close in the US on 5 November, Axiosreported on Thursday.

Unilever out of the woods. X dropped Unilever out of its lawsuit against an advertiser boycott after the two firms struck a deal, according to a Friday court filing. It is “the first part of the ecosystem-wide solution,” X posted on Friday.

Wordpress drama. The CEO of Wordpress.com, the commercial arm of Wordpress, offered a second buyout to employees who disagree with his actions, 404 Mediareported on Thursday. Over the last few weeks, drama has erupted in the web content management ecosystem after the CEO took up a fight with WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting platform. After they were offered $30,000 earlier in October, 8.4% of the company left, The Vergereported. 

Meta layoffs. The social media giant fired 100 people this week as it pursues “efficiency,” at least the third time such incremental layoffs have happened this year, Fortune reported on Thursday.    

Blame the humans. Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri blamed human moderators over some decisions, as opposed to automated systems, in a post on Friday.   

Deutsche Telekom’s good news. The lobby for EU telecom incumbents Connect Europe often tells policymakers that the industry is suffering, but Deutsche Telekom (DT) boasts results that exceed expectations. Read more. 

Towards telecom Council conclusions. A telecom working party at the Council was held on Tuesday, which discussed the latest version of the conclusions. The contentious paragraph on consolidation is incomprehensible or too open to interpretation, member states said. Therefore, it could be deleted altogether, three sources told Euractiv. The Hungarian presidency will wait for member states written comments – due 22 October – to decide whether to delete or clarify the paragraph.  

Musk’s space spectrum battle. Indian Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said at the World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly (WTSA) on Tuesday that India had no plan to auction space spectrum bandwidth as it is common. At the WTSA, Indian telecom billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal tried to push India to auction space spectrum bandwidths in urban areas, which was against Musk's position. Musk thanked the Indian government for its stance on X. 

Starlink-powered Russian military. Ukrainian forces say SpaceX is not doing enough to prevent Russian forces from using illicit Starlink terminals to enhance coordination, The Wall Street Journalreported. 

Cook calls. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook called Donald Trump to bring up the €1.84 billion antitrust fine and the €13 billion tax bill they have received in the EU, the presidential candidate said in an interview published on Thursday. “I got to get elected first, but I am not going to let them take advantage of our companies,” Trump said he responded.   

• Inside the Companies That Set Sports Gambling Odds (Bloomberg)
• Pig Butchering Scams Are Going High Tech (Wired)
• TikTok wants to turn millions of Americans into paid shopping influencers (Rest of World) 

[Edited by Martina Monti]

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