Google has been fined 250m ( 213m) by French regulators for breaching an agreement over paying media companies for reproducing their content online. France's competition watchdog said on Wednesday that it was fining the US tech company for breaches linked to intellectual property rules related to news media publishers. The regulator also cited concerns about Google's AI service. The competition authority said Google's AI-powered chatbot Bard – since rebranded as Gemini – was trained on content from publishers and news agencies without notifying them. The watchdog said in a statement that the fine was for "failing to respect commitments made in 2022" and accused Google of not negotiating in "good faith" with news publishers on how much to compensate them for use of their content.

Last week, Microsoft completed its $69bn purchase of Activision Blizzard, sealing a deal that many called the biggest in video game history (although they are overlooking the 1965 merger of Nihon Goraku Bussan and Rosen Enterprises to form the glorious Sega Enterprises, but let's not get into that). Microsoft was keen to slightly downplay the significance of the moment in its own press release, pointing out that it will become only, "the world's third-largest [emphasis my own] gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony". However, we all understand the awesome power it now wields, with Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Candy Crush Saga under its command. How will this affect us, the gamers? Not much to begin with.

By using the power of Reveal Data's first class neural-net AI, along with the data and know-how available within a global law firm like DLA Piper, the AI has been taught to spot these cartel risks and enable our lawyers to quickly run a review and advise clients of their cartel risks. Specifically, Aiscension has been trained to uncover the following forms of cartel behavior: price fixing; bid rigging; market sharing; collective boycotts and exchanging competitively sensitive information.