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Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

December 11, 2023
Justice Alito Dissents To Intervention Denial In Social Media Coercion Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Acknowledging that intervention in U.S. Supreme Court cases “is reserved for unusual circumstances,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Dec. 11 dissented to the court’s denial of a motion by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to intervene in a suit over the federal government’s potential coercion of social media platforms and violations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, opining that the presidential candidate may be irreparably harmed because his parallel lawsuit is presently stalled in a trial court pending resolution of the present case.
December 11, 2023
Supreme Court Passes On Taking Another TCPA Autodialer Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Despite a petitioner’s argument that there is “continuing and substantial confusion . . . over the definition of an autodialer” in the context of the Telephone Consumer Privacy Act (TCPA) since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling in Facebook Inc. v. Duguid, the high court on Dec. 11 denied the petition for certiorari in his putative class complaint against Meta Platforms Inc. over unsolicited text messages sent to Facebook users.
December 11, 2023
High Court Won’t Hear 1st, 4th Amendment Questions Over Livestreamed Traffic Stop

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its Dec. 11 order list, the U.S. Supreme Court denied competing petitions for certiorari filed by a North Carolina police department and a man who livestreamed a traffic stop by two of the department’s officers, declining to address their respective questions under the Fourth and First Amendments to the U.S. Constitution related to free speech, protected activity, qualified immunity, lawfully seized vehicles and officer safety, among other things.
December 11, 2023
Panel Upholds Win For Zillow On Copyright Claims By Photographer

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in Washington correctly dismissed allegations of copyright infringement leveled against Zillow Inc., the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Dec. 8, agreeing that a photographer failed to establish volitional conduct by the online real estate website.
December 11, 2023
Digitization Dispute Belongs In California, New York Federal Judge Concludes

NEW YORK — A group of copyright infringement defendants working to collect, digitize and upload 78 rpm phonographic records won transfer on Dec. 8 of the allegations against them from a federal court in New York to the Northern District of California.
December 08, 2023
Judge Dismisses UCL Suit Against Amazon For Fake Recycled Ink Cartridge Sales

LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit accusing Amazon.com Inc. and its subsidiaries of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by permitting third-party sellers to post allegedly deceptive listings for recycled printer ink cartridges, thereby diverting business from authentic ink cartridge recyclers, after finding the claims barred by Amazon’s statutory immunity as an online publisher.
December 08, 2023
Trump: Mooting Of Twitter 1st Amendment Row Requires Vow To Not Repeat Actions

PASADENA, Calif. — Referring to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Acheson Hotels LLC v. Laufer in a citation of supplemental authority, Donald J. Trump told the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that a declaration of mootness in his censorship lawsuit against Twitter Inc. necessitates a promise by the social network operator that it will not repeat the behavior that led the former president to level claims against it for violation of the First Amendment.
December 07, 2023
9th Circuit Finds Crypto Firm’s Delegation Provision Not Unconscionable

SAN FRANCISCO — A cryptocurrency exchange customer, who lost funds in a phishing incident, failed to establish that the delegation provision in the exchange’s arbitration agreement is unconscionable and unenforceable, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing a trial court’s denial of the exchange’s motion to compel arbitration of the customer’s Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) putative class claim against it.
December 07, 2023
San Francisco Says Online Companies Are Violating Flavored E-Cigarettes Ban

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office filed a lawsuit in California state court against three e-cigarette distributors based in California that the office claims are violating San Francisco’s bans on e-cigarettes and flavored tobacco by selling flavored e-cigarette products online and shipping the products into the city, seeking penalties under California’s unfair competition law (UCL).
December 07, 2023
Judge Preliminarily Enjoins Montana’s TikTok Ban

MISSOULA, Mont. — Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen failed to establish that a newly enacted law banning the TikTok social network from being used anywhere in the state is primarily a consumer protection law, a Montana federal judge held as he granted preliminary injunction motions to prevent the law from going into effect, which were filed by TikTok Inc. and a group of the social network’s users.
December 07, 2023
New Jersey Federal Magistrate Judge Denies ‘Vast Expansion’ Of Copyright Case

TRENTON, N.J. — A request to add more than 320 copyrighted works to existing copyright infringement litigation was largely denied Dec. 6 by a federal magistrate judge in New Jersey, who said the proposed amendments would be prejudicial.
December 06, 2023
9th Circuit Reverses, Remands $5.2M Settlement Of Tinder Age-Bias Class Claims

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 5 reversed and remanded a $5.2 million settlement to resolve claims accusing a dating app of discriminatory age-based pricing in violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act and California’s unfair competition law (UCL), ruling in favor of objectors who contended that the class representative was inadequate.
December 06, 2023
Google, YouTube Subscriber Agree To Dismiss UCL Suit Over Automatic Renewals

SANTA CLARA, Calif — A California state court judge entered a stipulated order dismissing with prejudice a plaintiff’s putative class complaint accusing Google LLC and YouTube LLC of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and automatic renewal law (ARL) based on its renewals of YouTube Premium and YouTube music memberships after the court sustained a defense demurrer to the complaint.
December 06, 2023
9th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of UCL, Libel Claims For Anti-Qatar Disinformation

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a district court’s order striking claims against several entities and individuals for allegedly violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and committing trade libel by spreading disinformation online casting the state of Qatar in a negative light, while also affirming the dismissal of the defendants’ counterclaims.
December 05, 2023
Supreme Court Vacates, Remands ADA Hotel Website Tester Suit As Moot

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Although a U.S. Supreme Court majority found today that the plaintiff in an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuit against a hotel “singlehandedly generated a circuit split” with the many similar lawsuits she filed over hotels’ failure to provide information about their accommodations for disabled customers on their websites, it concluded that her dismissal of the suit, after certiorari was granted, mandated that the case be vacated as moot.
December 04, 2023
Flight Attendant Seeks Affirmance Of Jury Verdict In Protected Speech Case

NEW ORLEANS — A flight attendant in her principal and response brief filed in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals argues that a jury verdict and the trial court’s judgment finding that she was fired by Southwest Airlines Co. due to discrimination caused by the union representing flight attendants because of her religious beliefs, observances and practices must be upheld as her social media messages about abortion were protected.
December 01, 2023
Shareholders: Lending Platform Misconstrues Judge’s Order In Motion To Reconsider

CINCINNATI — A lending platform and certain related defendants, accused by shareholders of making inaccurate claims about the platform’s use of artificial intelligence to approve loans, indicated in a notice in an Ohio federal court no opposition to several investment funds’ motion to intervene in the suit, a day after the shareholders filed a memorandum in opposition to the lending platform’s motion to reconsider an order partially dismissing the suit.
December 01, 2023
Law Firm Tells 9th Circuit Rival’s Use Of Mark In Keyword Ad Was Infringing

SAN FRANCISCO — Asking the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court’s summary judgment finding that a competitor’s use of its trademark in a Google keyword advertisement did not infringe, an Arizona law firm in its appellant brief expressed its concern that if the judgment is permitted to stand, it will “severely erode the ability of trademark holders to protect against the misuse of their marks online.”
November 30, 2023
In GitHub AI Copyright Suit, Parties Told To Meet, Confer Not Move To Compel

SAN FRANCISCO — While a California federal court mulls a second round of motions from OpenAI Inc., GitHub Inc. and Microsoft Corp. seeking dismissal of claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and California’s unfair competition law (UCL) related to allegations of improper attribution in the development of an artificial intelligence tool, a magistrate judge denied the plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery responses in favor of a directive for the parties to meet and confer about discovery disputes.
November 28, 2023
Mothers Say Section 230 Doesn’t Bar UCL Suit Against Roblox For ‘Illegal Gambling’

SAN FRANCISCO — Two mothers bringing putative class claims in California federal court against Roblox Corp., the operator of an online video game platform played by millions of children, filed a brief opposing its motion to dismiss, urging the court to reject its defense that federal law bars their claims or that it provided only “neutral tools” to third-party companies that allegedly operated gambling games on Roblox.
November 28, 2023
Terror-Aiding Plaintiffs Defend Remand Requests In 9th Circuit Briefs

SAN FRANCISCO — Countering briefs in which X Corp Inc. (formerly Twitter Inc.), Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) and Google LLC ask the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to affirm dismissal of two lawsuits seeking to hold them liable for terrorist attacks under the Antiterrorism Act (ATA), the plaintiffs argue that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in two other ATA cases does not foreclose them from seeking remand in the present cases.
November 15, 2023
COMMENTARY: Developments In The Use Of AI In Financial Investigations

By Keith Williamson and Robert Cruse
November 22, 2023
As High Court Mulls Tester’s Suit, 4th Circuit Vacates Sanction Of Her Ex-Counsel

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A self-appointed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) tester filed a letter with the U.S. Supreme Court in a recently argued appeal focusing on testers’ standing in such suits, informing the high court that a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel had recently vacated a disciplinary ruling against her former attorney, whom she had described as a “distraction” and one of her reasons for unsuccessfully seeking to dismiss the case as moot prior to argument.
November 21, 2023
Google, Consumers, States Reach Final Settlement Of Play Store Antitrust Suits

SAN FRANCISCO — More than two months after announcing a tentative settlement of monopolization and unfair competition claims centering on Google Inc.’s Play Store, a group of consumers and a coalition of U.S. states, comprising the plaintiffs from two of the antitrust suits consolidated with one filed by Epic Games Inc., teamed up with Google on a notice of executed settlement, informing a California federal court that the parties had finalized the settlement.
November 21, 2023
Judge Dismisses ‘Nonsensical’ Copyright Claims For Meta’s Use Of Books To Train AI

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Nov. 20 granted a motion to dismiss the bulk of claims brought by authors in two related putative class actions against Meta Platforms Inc. for copyright infringement based on its use of their written works to train its artificial intelligence software, calling the plaintiffs’ “derivative works” argument “nonsensical.”