Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

August 30, 2023
Gambia, Meta Settle Remaining Discovery Disputes Over Myanmar’s Acts Of Genocide

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A three-year disagreement over whether Meta Platforms Inc. could be compelled to produce Facebook posts and messages of Myanmar officials came to a close when a District of Columbia federal judge approved the parties’ stipulation to enter final judgment and close the case in which the Republic of the Gambia had sought discovery to use in a proceeding regarding Myanmar’s acts of genocide.
August 30, 2023
2nd Circuit: Access Codes Are Coupons; Incentive Payments Not Per Se Unlawful

NEW YORK — A trial court employed the wrong legal standard when it approved a settlement between The New York Times and subscribers in a case over auto renewals and erred in finding that the access codes provided as part of the settlement were not coupons under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled; however, the appellate panel reiterated its holding in Melito v. Experian Marketing Solutions, Inc. and ruled “that incentive awards are not per se unlawful.”
August 30, 2023
Investor’s Daughter Asks Supreme Court To Decline To Hear Bespeaks-Caution Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following the death of an investor who filed a class action over a real estate investment company’s alleged misrepresentations in social media posts soliciting investments, his daughter filed a brief requesting that the Supreme Court deny a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the company, saying the company mischaracterizes the findings of a federal appeals court’s ruling.
August 30, 2023
SEC Requests Interlocutory Appeal In Crypto Case, Citing Recent Crypto Decision

NEW YORK — The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a motion to certify for interlocutory appeal in its case against a crypto asset firm it accuses of selling billions of units of its cryptocurrency without registering it as a security, arguing that the recent ruling in its case from a federal judge in New York that the crypto assets do not satisfy a long-standing test for securities “explicitly” contradicts another ruling on a similar matter in the same district.
August 29, 2023
AI Companies Say ‘Fair Use’ Protects Chatbot From Copyright Holders’ Class Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI Inc. and affiliated companies that developed the ChatGPT AI program on Aug. 28 moved to dismiss the bulk of two putative class actions filed against them by writers and copyright holders including comedian Sarah Silverman, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to plead copyright infringement as OpenAI never distributed “derivative works” and was allowed under “fair use” to train its chatbot with large datasets of text.
August 28, 2023
Judge Extends Restraining Order In FTC’s AI Sales Case

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge on Aug. 25 extended a temporary restraining order in a Federal Trade Commission action in a case claiming a company and various individual defendants charged up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for allegedly artificial intelligence-based online store management that never materialized the promised revenues.
August 25, 2023
5th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Secretary’s Claims After Firing For Facebook Post

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana court secretary who was fired after a co-worker complained about a comment she made, as well as her post on social media regarding a motorist who drove through a blockade of protestors, failed to show that her right to free speech outweighed the interests of the judicial district where she worked, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, affirming a trial court’s dismissal of her claims with prejudice.
August 25, 2023
Contempt Findings In Oracle, Rimini Copyright Row Largely Upheld By 9th Circuit

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Aug. 24 said that while a federal judge in Nevada committed no abuse of discretion in holding Rimini Street Inc. in contempt for its continued storage of Oracle USA Inc. files in its computer systems, the tech support company was wrongly enjoined from de minimis copying of Oracle source code and wrongly sanctioned for copying an Oracle database file it received from a customer.
August 24, 2023
OpenAI, Radio Host Debate Where Defamation Suit Belongs

ATLANTA — A radio host who claims that he was defamed by ChatGPT when it described him to a journalist as the defendant in embezzlement case and OpenAI Inc. have both responded to an order to show cause on whether the company’s diversity jurisdiction allegations were sufficient to keep the case in federal court in Georgia.
August 23, 2023
Antitrust Suit Over Alleged Google, Apple Noncompete Agreement Dismissed

SAN JOSE, Calif.— A group of internet search engine users saw their antitrust claims against Google LLC and Apple Inc. dismissed by a California federal judge, who ruled that the plaintiffs did not allege sufficient facts to support their assertions that the two companies entered into a clandestine arrangement under which Apple agreed not to develop a search engine that would compete with Google in exchange for payments of billions of dollars.
August 22, 2023
Mothers Say Roblox Preyed On Sons With ‘Illegal Gambling’ In Putative Class Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Two mothers filed a putative class action in California federal court on behalf of their minor sons accusing Roblox Corp., the operator of an online video game platform played by millions of children, and three companies that allegedly operate gambling games on Roblox, of racketeering and violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by allegedly targeting children with gambling games.
August 18, 2023
DOJ Wants To Argue In High Court Disputes Over State Actors, Facebook Blocking

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), on behalf of the United States, filed motions with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting argument time in two parallel lawsuits focusing on when a government employee’s blocking of individuals from social media accounts constitutes a state action resulting in violations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
August 17, 2023
In Longstanding Copyright Row, Injunction Against Rimini Temporarily Stayed

LAS VEGAS — An emergency motion to stay an injunction pending the outcome of an appeal by Rimini Street Inc. to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has been denied by a federal judge in Nevada, but in the same order the judge agreed to temporarily administratively stay the relief she recently ordered until the appellate court resolves an as-yet unfiled Rimini motion for a stay.
August 16, 2023
DMCA, UCL Row Dispute Over Digital Street Scenery Dismissed In California

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Allegations by a technical artist that his former employer, an autonomous vehicle company, falsely represented to a third party that his digital urban scenery was a work for hire under federal copyright law have been dismissed by a California federal judge.
August 16, 2023
Federal Judge Rules SEC Can Argue Crypto Is Security In Case Against Singapore Firm

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York denied a cryptocurrency firm’s motion to dismiss a complaint filed against it by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wherein the SEC alleges that the firm schemed to defraud investors, finding that the SEC is within its authority to argue that cryptocurrencies are securities.
August 16, 2023
Sweepstakes Participants Waive Response To Coinbase’s 2nd Certiorari Petition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of consumers who took part in a sweepstakes on the website of Coinbase Inc. filed a notice informing the U.S. Supreme Court that they waived their right to respond to a petition for certiorari that the cryptocurrency exchange filed the same day that the high court issued a ruling dismissing the company’s previous petition in a dispute over enforcing an arbitration clause.
August 04, 2023
COMMENTARY: Artificial Intelligence: Top 3 Legal Issues

By Dr. Andreas Lober
July 27, 2023
COMMENTARY: COVID-19, Generative AI And The “Lost Generation” Of Lawyers

By Jennifer M. Driscoll and Linn F. Freedman
August 16, 2023
United States, Meta Waive Responses To Certiorari Petition Over TCPA, Robo-Calls

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A month after a Facebook user petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to “resolve the continuing and substantial confusion . . . over the definition of an autodialer in the” Telephone Consumer Privacy Act (TCPA), both the United States and Meta Platforms Inc. filed waivers indicating that they do not intend to respond to the petition for certiorari.
August 16, 2023
Advertisers Say YouTube Played Ads To ‘The Void’ In Putative Class Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Two marketers filed a putative class action in California federal court accusing Google LLC, which owns video platform YouTube, of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by taking their payments to run advertisements on videos that were never seen by real-life viewers.
August 15, 2023
DOJ Backs Certiorari In 1st Amendment Suits Over Texas, Florida Social Media Laws

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Filing an amicus curiae brief on Aug. 14 at the request of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the United States, opined that certiorari should be granted in parallel lawsuits concerning whether content moderation provisions of recently passed social media laws in Texas and Florida violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
August 15, 2023
Third-Party Standing Debated In Suit Over Arkansas Ban On Minors’ Social Media Use

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and a trade association of internet companies filed briefs in Arkansas federal court addressing whether the association has third-party standing to file suit under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on behalf of its members to enjoin enactment of a new state law restricting minors’ access to social media platforms.
August 14, 2023
Justice Kagan Won’t Vacate 9th Circuit’s Mandate Stay In Apple, Epic Antitrust Row

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A mandate that established an injunction permitting Epic Games Inc. to inform consumers of alternate methods of making in-app purchases (IAPs) in its games will remain stayed following Justice Elena Kagan’s denial of the gaming firm’s application to vacate the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ stay of the mandate pending Apple Inc.’s forthcoming petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court related to the matter.
August 14, 2023
7th Circuit Vacates, Remands Denial Of Fee Award In Copyright Case

CHICAGO — Findings by a federal judge in Illinois that an award of attorney fees in favor of a software licensee accused of infringement would not advance the purpose of federal copyright law “strays from our law,” the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 11 in vacating and remanding.
August 11, 2023
U.S. High Court Denies Request To Dismiss As Moot Website Accessibility Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 10 issued an order denying a request by a self-described “tester” of websites’ compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to dismiss as moot an appeal by a hotel she sued; the high court stated that “[t]he question of mootness will be subject to further consideration at oral argument in addition to the question presented.”