TikTok’s 2024 revenues in the UK, Europe, and Latin America surged 38% to $6.3 billion, more than doubling 2022 levels, per filings cited by Forbes. The growth underscores TikTok’s strength outside the US, where a divest-or-ban standoff continues. Yet regulatory scrutiny in Europe looms large, with over $1 billion reserved for fines, ongoing probes across multiple countries, and potential penalties under the EU’s Digital Services Act. TikTok’s UK penetration tops 32%, with ad revenues projected to triple by 2027. Still, layoffs in trust and safety roles and a pivot to AI moderation could test regulators and user trust.

The news: A federal appeals court upheld $92 million in fines against T-Mobile and Sprint for illegally selling customer location information (CLI) without proper consent or safeguards. Our take: When building campaigns that use location-based targeting or CLI, marketers should treat consent and transparency as not only legal checkboxes but also strategic imperatives. Brands that clearly communicate how data is collected and used will build trust and better maintain customer loyalty.

Zuckerberg wants Trump to slow the EU’s advertising crackdown: Meta is pressuring the administration to fight back against EU fines.

The UK joins the global crackdown on data: Regulators are set to designate platforms under a new law that imposes significant restrictions.

The need for more detailed record-keeping will increase compliance costs.

In today’s episode, host Bill Fisher is joined by analysts Paul Briggs, Paola Florez-Marquez, and Minda Smiley to discuss the role that social media platforms are being asked to play in protecting children online. Is regulation, and subsequent heavy fines, about to force them to get more serious about this?

Disparities in which groups receive these deals led the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to ask questions about fair lending practices.

Meta's major monetization of minors mishap: The FTC has proposed to bar the social giant from using children's data for their ad business.

Big Tech tries cooperation, not combat, with EU regulators: Platforms are trying to adapt to new norms around data privacy and advertising.

On today's episode, we discuss how affiliate is the power player in the consumer journey and an amplifier of all marketing channels’ efforts. "In Other News," we talk about the significance of all of these Google fines and the biggest strengths and weaknesses for the future of live sports streaming. Tune in to the discussion with our analyst Paul Verna and CJ's senior vice president of client development Sommer Urias.

Eight banks and three other FIs will pay a combined $1.8B for their message retention failures, highlighting the need for better tech tools at work.

Wall Street banks are expected to face more than $1B in fines over traders’ use of private messaging apps.

The SEC has called out JPMorgan, UBS, and TradeStation for deficient customer identity theft prevention programs, and the CFPB just fined U.S. Bank for opening unwanted new accounts.

On top of that, BMO Harris has been accused of deleting evidence. This could mark the end of the line for the deal.

More than half of consumers in the UK would switch their bank if it was caught laundering cash, new research shows.

Google and Meta head toward another major showdown with Europe’s regulators: A new investigation alleges the two companies made a deal to block competition against Google’s ad system.