Ofcom research: one-third of UK children between 8 and 17 with social media profiles use falsified adult ages, mainly by signing up with a fake date of birth (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ryan Browne / CNBC:
UK media regulator Ofcom plans to investigate the cloud computing, personal messaging, and smart device markets over competition concerns  —  – Ofcom, the U.K. media watchdog, is set to launch a study examining the role of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in the cloud services market.

Thomas Seal / Bloomberg:
UK’s Ofcom proposes changes to net neutrality rules carried over from the EU to give ISPs more flexibility, like offering deals on latency and other parameters  —  UK regulator Ofcom proposed changes to net neutrality rules carried over from the European Union to give telecommunications and internet providers more flexibility.

Vincent Manancourt / Politico:
Ireland’s DPC fines Instagram €405M for violating children’s privacy under GDPR, the second highest fine under the law and the third for a Meta-owned company  —  The Irish Data Protection Commission has fined Meta-owned social media platform Instagram €405 million for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation.

Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Fake Twitter accounts of athletes and other celebrities, some now suspended, are spreading fake announcements and chaos as paid Blue checkmarks become available  —  Elon Musk’s mercurial leadership and half-baked product plans are already creating fertile ground for confusion on Twitter.

Sunil Jagtiani / Bloomberg:
Crypto prices sink, with bitcoin dropping ~4% and ether ~7%, dragged down by the ongoing FTX saga, potential contagion, and the FTX hacker offloading ether  —  Cryptocurrency prices struggled Monday in the ongoing crisis sparked by the downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s once powerful FTX empire.

TechCrunch:
BrandTotal and Unimania agreed to a permanent injunction banning them from using and scraping Facebook and Instagram, and will pay a “significant financial sum”  —  Facebook parent Meta has settled a lawsuit in the U.S. against two companies that had engaged in data scraping operations …