California's school phones
Calling time
California is right to make every district write a phone policy, and right to stop there; the next generation of founders will need its attention more than its apps.
Policy & Regulation
Governments, courts and regulators, and what they mean for those who build.
Australia's social-media ban
Sweet sixteen
Australia's under-16 ban answers a real collective-action problem, but it fines platforms for an age check nobody has yet shown can work, and should have waited for the trial.
Student loans and the courts
Debt of honour
The Supreme Court was right to stop the president cancelling $400bn of student debt by himself, but Congress should now fix the lending that created the debt instead of sending taxpayers the bill.
Foreign students and America
Leave to remain
America nearly told 1.1m international students to go home over a technicality, and the founders it would have lost are worth far more than the rule's tidiness.
The H-1B fee
Price of admission
A flat $100,000 charge on new H-1B petitions will cull the cheapest hires and the poorest employers, when a wage-based allocation would target the abuse the White House says it wants to stop.
America's stablecoin law
Coin flip, resolved
The GENIUS Act is a sound bargain, full reserves in exchange for legal certainty, and its real test will be how strictly the new regulators apply it.
California and AI regulation
Safety in numbers
Gavin Newsom was right to veto a bill that regulated AI by the size of the cheque, but wrong to leave the vacuum to a panel of experts
America and TikTok
Sell-by date
Congress was right to make ownership the issue with TikTok, but it should have written a rule for every foreign-owned app and not a statute with one name on it.
Europe's AI Act
Act of faith
Europe has passed the world's first comprehensive AI law by a wide margin; its real test is whether a rulebook written before the products existed can bind the firms that now write the products
Biden and artificial intelligence
Order, order
Mr Biden's AI order is sensible where it asks developers to show their homework and hollow where it pretends a presidential pen can do Congress's job.
Europe's Digital Markets Act
Gate expectations
Brussels was right to name its gatekeepers, but it should be judged on whether rivals win customers, not on how many rules the six firms obey
Meta and EU data transfers
A fine mess
Ireland's record fine on Meta punishes a company for a conflict that only governments can settle, and Europe should fix the treaty, not fine the tenant.
Export controls
The silicon curtain
America's sweeping new chip controls on China make strategic sense, but unlike the cold war's embargo they have only one government behind them
The CHIPS Act
Chips on the table
America is right to pay for chip factories, but the tax credit will do more good than the grants, and the real test is whether Washington knows when to stop.
Section 230
Label and liable
Mr Trump's order asks a regulator to rewrite a law that Congress wrote plainly, and if it worked it would make platforms more cautious editors, not more neutral ones.
Huawei and TSMC
Foundry and loathing
America's new rule on Huawei's chips is a clever weapon, but each use of it teaches the world to build around American tools
America v Apple
An Apple a day
The Justice Department's suit is strongest where Apple's gatekeeping protects its services profits, and it should resist the temptation to ask a court to design the iPhone.
Epic v Google
Play the field
A jury has found that Google rigged Android's app market, and the right remedy is more competition for the Play Store, not a court-drawn design for the phone.
America v Amazon
Prime suspect
The government's case against Amazon is strongest where it targets the penalty for cheap prices elsewhere, and weakest where it treats a popular service as a crime.
America v Google, again
Bidding farewell
The Justice Department is right that Google should not run both the auction and the biggest bidders in it, and a break-up of the ad exchange is the remedy to press.
America v Microsoft
Level playing field
The FTC is right to worry about a console maker hoarding games, but a binding promise to share Call of Duty is a better remedy than a ban on the deal.
The Digital Markets Act
Gate expectations
Europe's new rulebook for tech gatekeepers is right to demand choice, but it should stop short of dictating how rival products are built.
Epic v Apple
Steering committee
Judge Gonzalez Rogers was right to clear Apple of monopoly and right to let developers point customers elsewhere; the second ruling does more for competition than the first would have.
Lina Khan at the FTC
Paradox lost
Lina Khan is right that antitrust has grown too fond of low prices, but she will do more for competition by winning cases under the law as it stands than by trying to rewrite it.
America v Facebook
Face value
The government has a fair case that Facebook bought a rival it feared, but a breakup is the wrong cure and the regulator's own clearance of the deals is the weakest part of its case.
America v Google
Feeling lucky
The Justice Department's case against Google is narrower than its critics fear and better aimed than its fans realise, and its target should be the price of the default.
Transatlantic data
Shield of dreams
Europe's court was right that American surveillance law fails its tests, and a third patched-up deal would only schedule a third defeat; Washington should change the law.
Facebook's Libra
Coin flip
Congress should neither strangle Libra in the crib nor wave it through; the sensible test is whether Facebook will submit to the rules that already bind everyone else who handles other people's money.
