California’s ambitious climate disclosure laws just dodged a major legal roadblock. On August 13, 2025, a federal judge in Los Angeles refused to press pause on the state’s landmark Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) and Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261). Translation: businesses caught by these rules should brace themselves, the countdown to 2026 compliance is officially on.
Google has admitted to engaging in anti-competitive conduct in Australia, following a long-running investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The tech giant acknowledged that, between December 2019 and March 2021, it reached restrictive agreements with Telstra and Optus requiring that Android phones sold by the carriers only pre-install Google Search, shutting out rival providers.
The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has reached a $2 million settlement with Healthplex after finding the dental insurance management company violated the state’s cybersecurity regulation, enabling a late-2021 phishing attack that compromised sensitive personal and health information for tens of thousands of consumers.
Mercer Super, one of Australia’s largest superannuation funds, is facing fresh legal trouble after the corporate regulator accused it of a pattern of systemic failures, the kind that can quietly erode trust in a sector meant to safeguard Australians’ retirement savings.
Generative AI may be the tech world’s shiny new engine, but as it powers everything from government chatbots to healthcare diagnostics, it has become appararent that these models eat data for breakfast, and a lot of that data is personal. On August 6, 2025, South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) decided it was time to lay down the law, or at least a roadmap, by releasing its first Guidelines on Personal Data Processing for Generative AI.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reopened its online Guidance Portal, reviving a Trump-era transparency tool that had been taken offline during the Biden-Harris Administration. Announced on August 13, the relaunched site serves as a centralized hub for guidance documents across the agency’s environmental programs, covering areas such as air quality, water protection, and hazardous waste management.
Zelle promised speed, convenience, and the comforting seal of “backed by the banks.” For many users, it delivered something else entirely, a direct pipeline for scammers to siphon away hard-earned money, with little hope of getting it back.