Dark Patterns fines

Fifty-one state and territory attorneys general settled claims that Meta designed Instagram and Facebook to be addictive for minors, knowingly exposed young users to mental-health harm, and misled the public about how safe its platforms were. Meta will pay a guaranteed $12.1B over ten years, rising to $17.1B if other major social platforms agree to adopt the same safeguards.

The FTC settled claims that Amazon tricked consumers into enrolling in Prime through deceptive sign-up flows and made cancellation deliberately difficult, an internal process nicknamed Iliad. The settlement comprised a $1B civil penalty and $1.5B in refunds to about 35 million customers.

Texas reached its own settlement with Meta over the safety of children on its platforms, separate from the 51 attorneys general deal announced the same day. The Attorney General's release says Meta will pay over $1 billion to the state and adopt new safeguards for young users.

The CNIL's largest cookie penalty against Google covered advertising inserted directly into Gmail inboxes without consent, alongside continued cookie-consent failures.

The CNIL found that Google made refusing cookies far harder than accepting them, a dark-pattern design that did not amount to valid consent.

The European Commission found three transparency breaches at X: the paid blue checkmark deceives users because anyone can buy verified status without being verified, the advertising repository is neither searchable nor complete, and researchers are blocked from the public data the DSA requires platforms to share.

The CNIL fined Google for placing advertising cookies on users' devices without prior consent and without adequate information.

Alabama settled claims that TikTok Inc. built its platform with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harm, and misled the public about its safety. The case was set for trial the following week and would have been the first state case against TikTok to reach trial.

The CNIL fined Microsoft for depositing advertising cookies on bing.com without consent and for making it harder to refuse cookies than to accept them.

The CNIL fined Amazon for placing advertising cookies on amazon.fr visitors' devices without consent or adequate information.