Welcome back. Today, Apple gets a slap on the wrist for a contentious app privacy policy; high prices for new phones fuel a growing secondhand market; and the Trump administration puts Disney in the crosshairs.

France fined Apple 150 million euros ($162.4 million) over concerns that the company abused its dominance as it imposed new privacy rules on mobile apps, Edith Hancock reports.

The country’s competition regulator said there was no problem with the goal of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency system, which since 2021 has forced developers to ask users’ permission to track them across apps.

But it said Apple’s services don’t face the same restrictions and that the policy penalizes smaller publishers that depend on collecting third-party data to fund their businesses.

Apple called the decision disappointing but said it didn’t order any specific changes.

Germany’s competition regulator is also looking into the policy.

Most phone buyers still want a new device, but those looking for a cheaper alternative will find that mobile carriers, retailers and even Apple and Samsung are stepping up their used-phone offerings, Stu Woo writes.

Driving the trend are people who want a premium experience without the price tag: While a new iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199, a secondhand iPhone 14 Pro Max can go for $500.

The used-phone industry has also matured, with companies inspecting and testing devices before resale. Shoppers can access Carfax-like reports detailing a phone’s test results and ownership history.

Apple meanwhile is partly motivated by the imperative to keep people on Apple devices, according to IDC analyst Anthony Scarsella. And carriers are trying to lure customers from rivals.

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating Disney for its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Joseph Pisani reports.

“While Disney started as an iconic American company, it recently went all in on DEI,” FCC head Brendan Carr said in a post on X.

In a departure from the administration’s bigger push to cut back regulation, Carr has promised to use the FCC’s enforcement powers to combat diversity initiatives in the private sector—such as scuttling mergers of companies with programs it doesn’t approve of.

The investigation also includes Disney’s TV network ABC, Carr said. He opened a similar investigation last month on cable company Comcast and its entertainment unit, NBCUniversal.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is planning a potential event on the evening of the White House Correspondents’ Association as counterprogramming to its annual dinner. [WSJ] 

President Trump commuted the nearly ten-year sentence of Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson hours before it was set to begin. [CNBC] 

The Trump administration said it will start letting states ban people from using federal food assistance to buy soda. [NYT] 

Chefs’ Warehouse, a supplier to upscale restaurants, hotels and country clubs, is thriving on wealthy consumers’ cravings for snow crab and wagyu beef. [WSJ] 

Airlines are trimming capacity on their flights from Canada to the U.S. as bookings decline. [BI]

Fitness chain SoulCycle is eyeing standalone “fashion” stores to sell its activewear alongside other brands’ clothes and beauty products. [Glossy]

Agencies say Google sales reps are aggressively pitching their clients on automated tools like Performance Max and generative AI. [Digiday] 

Some models like the idea of getting digitally cloned by H&M, but what about the other people who work on photo shoots? [Creative Bloq] 

Advertising creatives are split on the impact of OpenAI’s powerful new image generator. [Adweek] 

YouTube turned off advertising on a pair of channels featuring fake movie trailers generated by AI. [Deadline] 

Justine Bateman founded a film festival for movies and shorts made without AI. [THR]