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Bitcoin and NFTs could get more legal protection as ‘personal property’ under proposed UK law

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Bitcoin and NFTs may get greater legal protections as ‘personal property’ under proposed UK law

UK Government he introduced a brand new bill in parliament that proposes recent legal protections for digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and carbon credits.

The bill comes as the cryptocurrency sector faces a series of regulatory headwinds: In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that some crypto assets are securities, and earlier this 12 months, the SEC approved the primary U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund (ETF) to trace Bitcoin. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) can also be rolling out recent rules to control cryptocurrencies and make it easier to trace transactions.

Great Britain is we’re working on similar regulationsbut recent Asset Bill (Digital Assets etc.) fairly, it’s about legalizing digital assets as “personal property,” meaning they’ve the identical rank as traditional assets.

The proposed law is a response to Report 2023 from the Law Commission, which outlined the necessity to update the present laws on personal property rights. The report noted:

As technology advances and people spend more time online, our relationship with digital assets will develop into even more essential… Our recommendations also aim to be certain that the private law of England and Wales stays a dynamic, globally competitive and flexible tool for market participants in the world of ​​digital assets.

Law Commission: Digital Assets – Final Report Summary

The concept of “personal property” is significant in law since it plays a central role in legal matters referring to bankruptcy, insolvency, theft, inheritance, divorce proceedings and more. Currently, the law in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate legal systems) governs two categories of property: tangible goods such as cars, jewellery and money, known as “things in possession”. Separately, “things in action” concerns the protection of intangible assets such as shares, debts and mental property.

That leaves an enormous loophole for “digital” assets like Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies, as well as NFTs like digital art (which have modified hands for significant amounts in recent times). This recent, third category, if passed, would bring greater clarity to what constitutes personal property and make it easier for courts to resolve disputes.

For example, a court could issue a freezing order to stop someone from dissipating digital assets before a dispute is resolved, very like a court would for tangible goods. Or if someone steals their digital assets as a part of a fraud, they could pursue greater legal remedies.

Additionally, such a law would mean that digital assets could develop into a part of an individual’s estate for the needs of probate or bankruptcy proceedings.

What’s next?

The bill got here first published in draft form in July, but has now reached the primary reading stage within the House of Lords, where it’s going to must undergo a series of debates and amendments before going to the House of Commons.

There continues to be a protracted strategy to go before the law comes into force, but there are currently around Labour Party majority governmentso there’s a high probability that this bill will ultimately be passed – however it will not be clear in what form and with what provisions.

For example, what will likely be considered “digital assets” under the brand new laws? In theory, the term covers a wide selection of topics, such as email accounts and files, carbon credits and in-game digital assets. The Law Commission I admit this, noting that there’ll likely be “borderline issues” across the digital asset spectrum. He also recommends the so-called “customary law“approach”, indicating that the law may require a trial in court, during which the presiding judge issues a ruling in each individual case to determine precedents as as to if personal property rights ought to be granted to an asset in a specific case.

However, the Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission have been clear that the “main” digital assets they consider are protected are crypto-tokens such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Department of Justice: Google must sell Chrome to end its monopoly

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Google corporate logo hangs outside the Google Germany offices

The U.S. Department of Justice argued Wednesday that Google should sell its Chrome browser as part of a countermeasure to break the corporate’s illegal monopoly on online search, according to a filing with the Justice Department. United States District Court for the District of Columbia. If the answer proposed by the Department of Justice is approved, Google won’t have the option to re-enter the search marketplace for five years.

Ultimately, it’ll be District Court Judge Amit Mehta who will determine what the ultimate punishment for Google might be. This decision could fundamentally change one of the most important firms on the planet and alter the structure of the Internet as we understand it. This phase of the method is anticipated to begin sometime in 2025.

In August, Judge Mehta ruled that Google constituted an illegal monopoly since it abused its power within the search industry. The judge also questioned Google’s control over various web gateways and the corporate’s payments to third parties to maintain its status because the default search engine.

The Department of Justice’s latest filing says Google’s ownership of Android and Chrome, that are key distribution channels for its search business, poses a “significant challenge” to remediation to ensure a competitive search market.

The Justice Department has proposed other remedies to address the search engine giant’s monopoly, including Google spinning off its Android mobile operating system. The filing indicated that Google and other partners may oppose the spin-off and suggested stringent countermeasures, including ending the use of Android to the detriment of search engine competitors. The Department of Justice has suggested that if Google doesn’t impose restrictions on Android, it must be forced to sell it.

Prosecutors also argued that the corporate must be barred from stepping into exclusionary third-party agreements with browser or phone firms, resembling Google’s agreement with Apple to be the default search engine on all Apple products.

The Justice Department also argued that Google should license its search data, together with ad click data, to competitors.

Additionally, the Department of Justice also set conditions prohibiting Google from re-entering the browser market five years after the spin-off of Chrome. Additionally, it also proposed that after the sale of Chrome, Google mustn’t acquire or own any competing ad text search engine, query-based AI product, or ad technology. Moreover, the document identifies provisions that allow publishers to opt out of Google using their data to train artificial intelligence models.

If the court accepts these measures, Google will face a serious setback as a competitor to OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic in AI technology.

Google’s answer

In response, Google said the Department of Justice’s latest filing constitutes a “radical interventionist program” that may harm U.S. residents and the country’s technological prowess on the planet.

“The Department of Justice’s wildly overblown proposal goes far beyond the Court’s decision. “It would destroy the entire range of Google products – even beyond search – that people love and find useful in their everyday lives,” said Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer Kent Walker. blog post.

Walker made additional arguments that the proposal would threaten user security and privacy, degrade the standard of the Chrome and Android browsers, and harm services resembling Mozilla Firefox, which depends upon Google’s search engine.

He added that if the proposal is adopted, it could make it tougher for people to access Google search. Moreover, it could hurt the corporate’s prospects within the AI ​​race.

“The Justice Department’s approach would lead to unprecedented government overreach that would harm American consumers, developers and small businesses and threaten America’s global economic and technological leadership at precisely the moment when it is needed most,” he said.

The company is to submit a response to the above request next month.

Wednesday’s filing confirms earlier reports that prosecutors were considering getting Google to spin off Chrome, which controls about 61% of the U.S. browser market. According to to the StatCounter web traffic service.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Snowflake acquires data management company Datavolo

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The Snowflake Inc logo, which represents the American cloud computing-based data company that offers cloud-based storage and analytics services, is being displayed on their pavilion at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, Spain, on February 28, 2024.

Cloud giant Snowflake has agreed to take over Datavoloa company managing the data pipeline, for an undisclosed amount.

Snowflake announced the deal on Wednesday after the market bell closed, while reporting its third-quarter 2025 earnings. The purchase has not yet closed and is subject to customary closing conditions, Snowflake noted wa release.

Joseph Witt and Luke Roquet, who met while working together at Hortonworks, founded Datavolo in 2023. Witt was previously a vp at Cloudera, and Roquet was Cloudera’s chief marketing officer and, before that, director of business development at AWS.

Datavolo uses Apache NiFi, an open source data processing project developed by the NSA, to power a platform to automate data flow between disparate enterprise data sources. Data “processors” extract, cleanse, transform and enrich data, including for generative use of artificial intelligence.

With Datavolo having raised $21 million in enterprise capital from investors including Citi Ventures and General Catalyst prior to the acquisition, Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy envisions creating more comprehensive data pipelines for Snowflake customers. For example, he says Datavolo can enable users to interchange single-use data connectors with flexible pipelines that allow them to maneuver data from cloud and on-premises sources to Snowflake’s data cloud.

“By bringing Datavolo to Snowflake, we are increasing the amount of data captured by Snowflake over the lifecycle, providing our customers with both simplicity and cost savings, without sacrificing data extensibility,” Ramaswamy said in a press release. “We are thrilled to have the Datavolo team join Snowflake as we accelerate the best platform for enterprise data – unstructured and structured, batch and streaming – and committed to the success of the open source community.”

Witt says Snowflake will support and help manage the Apache NiFi project after the acquisition closes. “Data engineering at scale can be extremely expensive and complex, and our goal has always been to simplify our customers’ experiences so they can realize value faster,” he added within the press release. “By joining forces with Snowflake, we can deliver the massive scale and radical simplicity of the Snowflake platform to our customers, ultimately unlocking data engineering for more users.”

Thanks partly to artificial intelligence, demand for data management technologies has increased. Fortune’s business insights estimates that the worldwide enterprise data management market could possibly be price $224.87 billion by 2032.

However, data management has been a challenge for enterprises long before the substitute intelligence boom. According to in a 2022 survey by Great Hopetions, a data quality platform, 91% of organizations said data quality issues impact their performance.

Against this backdrop, it isn’t surprising that firms like Datavolo are gaining prominence.

Today was a giant day for Snowflake who reported better-than-expected earnings sent the company’s shares up 19%. In addition to the acquisition of Snowflake, the company announced a multi-year partnership with Anthropic to integrate the startup’s AI models into Snowflake’s Cortex AI, Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Analyst products.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Federal prosecutors have charged another Forbes 30 Under 30 alum with fraud

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Studio image of a padlock on top of a credit cardchampagne coloured background, could symbolize ideas around encryption, credit card safety, security and passwords

FBI yesterday he unveiled the indictment which accused Joanna Smith-Griffin, founding father of the bogus intelligence startup AllHere Education, of engaging in “securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with defrauding investors” of nearly $10 million. The FBI alleges that from a minimum of November 2020 through June 2024, she misrepresented her company’s revenue, customer base and money to investors.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the corporate is in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. If convicted, Smith-Griffin faces prison sentences that include a maximum sentence of 20 years for securities fraud, a maximum sentence of 20 years for wire fraud, and a compulsory sentence two years for a professional identity thief. Smith-Griffin couldn’t be reached for comment.

The Forbes 30 Under 30 list has change into a meme over the past few years as several winners have been accused of fraud. The The Forbes-for-scam pipeline includes FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of (*30*) Research; Fintech founder Frank, Charlie Javice, and “Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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