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At least nine US states are considering legislation that would make app store owners like Apple and Google responsible for age verification before giving access to apps with minimum age requirements. Currently the legal responsibility lies with developers.

The issue is most applicable to social media apps, which typically have a minimum age of 13, and is an approach advocated by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg …

Apple isn’t the only big tech facing antitrust investigations as Google has also come under scrutiny for its dominant position in the market. Even the deal between Google and Apple over Safari’s default search engine was considered a violation of antitrust laws, and a court has now ruled that Apple cannot intervene in the case.

Google’s $20 billion per year search deal with Apple was ruled last summer to violate antitrust law. Though Apple isn’t a defendant in the case, its outcome could have a big impact on the company. As a result, Apple has just asked for a stay on proceedings.

A federal judge last summer ruled that the $20B+ Google pays to Apple to be the default search engine on the Cupertino company’s devices was illegal.

Several Apple execs testified in the case, but a request to present an additional three witnesses has been refused by the judge, saying Apple left it too late …

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Last weekend, Google was found again serving a malicious website at the top of Search as a sponsored result. This isn’t the first time Google Ads has approved websites with embedded malware; in fact, the first instance of this goes back to 2007 when the platform (then called Google AdWords) was promoting fake antivirus software widely referred to as “scareware” at the time. But how, in 2025, can Google, with its DeepMind and deeper pockets, still allow this to happen? How are hackers outsmarting it?

This week, I want to briefly discuss this new campaign and how they were likely able to pull it off.

Security Bite is a weekly security-focused column on 9to5Mac. Each week, I share insights on data privacy, discuss the latest vulnerabilities, and shed light on emerging threats within Apple’s vast ecosystem of over 2 billion active devices.

Apple was fined a global total of more than $2.1B last year for antitrust violations, but the sum was only the equivalent of just over a week’s worth of free cash flow.

Encrypted email company Proton put together its latest Tech Fines Tracker, in which Google was the most heavily-fined company, with Apple in second place …

Apple and Google’s $20 billion deal, which sees Google serve as the default search engine on the iPhone, is under scrutiny. As we reported this morning, the United States DOJ is continuing its case against Google’s dominance in the search industry – and that lucrative Apple agreement is a focal point.

In a new court filing this week spotted by Reuters, Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, outlined why Apple itself would never develop its own search engine.

The iPhone and iPad could have different default search engines, argues a Google court filing, as the company attempts to protect its $20B a year deal with Apple.

Google’s annual payment to Apple to be the default search engine in Safari looks certain to be banned in an antitrust case, but the search giant is hitting back with a number of counterproposals …

The court ruling that Google is no longer allowed to pay Apple $20B+ a year to be the default search engine raises the question: What now? One potential answer being suggested is that the iPhone maker create its own Apple search engine.

But much as many of us might like to see that, it seems like an unlikely prospect – and just not worth the potential risks …

One of the new features announced in yesterday’s Google hardware event was Loss of Pulse Detection, found in the new Pixel Watch 3.

This would seem a great feature to pair with the Apple Watch’s own proactive monitoring and emergency alert feature Fall Detection …

Google yesterday held its annual hardware event, announcing new Pixel smartphones, Pixel Watch, and Pixel Buds.

The company took a few jabs at Apple along the way, attacking it on both hardware and AI fronts, including one claim which should win a prize for sheer ridiculousness …

Google has for years made billions of dollars worth of payments to Apple in return for being the default search engine on Apple devices. A court ruling yesterday appears to have declared those payments illegal under antitrust law.

But while that would be a setback to the company’s impressive Services revenue, in the scheme of things it wouldn’t amount to much more than a blip …

A federal judge today ruled that Google’s deals with Apple and other companies to be the default search engine violated antitrust law. As reported by Bloomberg, Judge Amit Mehta concluded that these agreements reduced competition in the search industry, giving Google an unfair advantage.

Reddit is now blocking all search engines except Google from indexing its site as it effectively implements a paywall for AI training.

Back in February, it was revealed that Google was paying Reddit more than $60M a year to get access to user posts to help train its AI models …

Google’s dominance of the search industry is the target of an ongoing Justice Department investigation – and its relationship with Apple is a key component of that case. A new report from The Information today focuses on how Google is racing to reduce its reliance on Apple’s Safari browser ahead of the potential outcome of the antitrust case.

Apple’s ad transparency tools aren’t sufficient to investigate issues like paid influence, says a new report, which also scored the effectiveness of 11 other tech companies’ tools.

Five companies – including social network X and Microsoft’s Bing search engine – scored close to zero, while Apple got a yellow rating indicating “big gaps” in the information provided …

On Sunday night, Bloomberg reported that Apple is in talks with Google about licensing its Gemini technology to power some AI features coming to the iPhone. A new report from The New York Times today echoes those claims, citing “three people with knowledge of the discussions” between Apple and Google.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has argued that for age-restricted apps, age verification should be Apple’s job. He’s now been joined in this view by the new head of trust and safety at Match, the company behind leading dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish.

Yoel Roth – who formerly had the same role in Twitter – said that Apple and Google are in a better position to accurately assess the age of their smartphone users …

The long-awaited Reddit IPO is finally official, as the company formally notified the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of its plans to take the company public on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol RDDT.

Reddit has also revealed that the controversial $60M/year deal to provide access to user-generated content to an AI company was with Google …