These days, some of tech’s most important decisions are being made inside courtrooms. Google and Facebook are fending off antitrust accusations, while patent suits determine how much control of their own products they can have. The slow fight over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act threatens platforms like Twitter and YouTube with untold liability suits for the content they host. Gig economy companies like Uber and Airbnb are fighting for their very existence as their workers push for the protections of full-time employees. In each case, judges and juries are setting the rules about exactly how far tech companies can push the envelope and exactly how much protection everyday people have. This is where we keep track of those legal fights and the broader principles behind them. When you move fast and break things, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise when you end up in court.
Media watchdog Ofcom has finalized its guidelines on new age verification requirements for adult content, with approved methods including face scans, credit card checks, and “email-based age estimation.” Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could decide whether similar age verification laws are constitutional in the US.
Everyone (including yes, The Verge) is watching for a Supreme Court decision on the TikTok ban today, but there’s another big oral argument being heard at 10AM ET: Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which could reset a 21-year-old precedent effectively barring strict online age verification and decide the fate of numerous state laws. Audio, as usual, will be streamed on the Supreme Court site.
The lawsuit joins other complaints filed since YouTuber MegaLag’s video accusing PayPal’s coupon-hunting Honey extension of hijacking affiliate links. The Legal Eagle channel filed one earlier this month as well.
The 90-minute video recaps the concerns raised in MegaLag’s original video and includes interviews with lawyers explaining the legal process.
Kate Knibbs of Wired recaps a hearing today for The New York Times’ very expensive lawsuit against OpenAI. The takeaway: everyone seems confused. Expect a decision on whether to dismiss the case “in due course.”
The US Supreme Court denied petitions from fossil fuel companies seeking to thwart a climate lawsuit filed against them — allowing the case to go to trial.
The city and county of Honolulu filed suit against Sunoco, Shell, and other oil companies accusing them of a “coordinated, multi-front effort to conceal and deny their own knowledge” of threats their products pose through climate change.
Two people have been arrested in California for flying unauthorized drones in areas impacted by the LA wildfires, according to a police report seen by Deadline.
The arrests follow a collision last Thursday between a civilian drone and a “Super Scooper” that was fighting the blazes, grounding the plane. The FAA says it’s investigating the incident. LA airspace restrictions are in place until January 25th.
Legal writer Eric Goldman pens his expert take on the state of internet law going into the new year, including generative AI, online speech, and Section 230:
Section 230 is on the extinction watch list in 2025. I will be shocked if it survives to see 2026. If you don’t already have a Section 230 tattoo, now is probably not the time to get one.
The silver lining is that I have a “no monuments to the living” tattoo policy, so apparently it’s exactly the right time.
[Technology & Marketing Law Blog]
An incoming change will criminalize the creation and sharing of sexually explicit deepfakes as part of efforts to tackle “vile online abuse,” the UK Ministry of Justice said on Tuesday.
It’s also going after people who take intimate images or videos without someone’s consent, with offenders facing up to two years behind bars.
The company sent a statement to The Verge emphasizing that it doesn’t agree with some allegations in a lawsuit it’s paying millions to settle. It has admitted that Siri recordings were shared with Apple contractors — but it promised years ago that the system was changed.
Kwon has been extradited to this US to face fraud charges. The charges contain a description of the overlapping network of allegedly fraudulent entities Kwon juggled before Terra / Luna came crashing to Earth.
Apple filed papers on Monday to participate in the Department of Justice’s victorious antitrust case against Google, which is now in its penalty phase. Google will need to make significant business changes, such as ending default search deals on devices like iPhones, which Google is OK with.
Apple? Well, its agreement with Google reportedly was worth $20 billion in 2022.
Netflix filed the lawsuit in Califonia federal court Monday, claiming Broadcom subsidiary VMware has cloud software that infringes on five Netflix patents. As reported by Reuters, Netflix says VMware’s vSphere platform for deploying and managing virtual machines infringes on Netflix patents related to virtual-machine communications.
Microsoft is still asking a judge in its AI copyright tussle to produce discovery on how New York Times reporters use chatbots, and it introduced an interesting 2023 Slack chat in a memorandum: apparently the Times product team told developers to avoid using other LLMs because it was rolling out its own. It’s not clear if this would become one of the tools the company has since announced.
Welch said as much in a post on Friday, breaking a two-week silence after she abruptly signed off an X Spaces event to address investor concerns over the abrupt implosion of her newly launched Hawk Tuah-themed meme coin, according to Rolling Stone.
Burwick Law, which filed the suit, said in a statement it’s accusing her partners of securities violations and using her fame to take advantage of investors.
The House is currently scrambling to pass a spending bill that would avert a shutdown. There is a better way. A more fun way. A meme.
Sean O’Kane writes that two focus on chief designer Jeff Hammoud, with one claiming HR failed to discipline him for being “prone to irrational outbursts of anger” that were “often directed at women in leadership.”
These previously unreported lawsuits and settlements follow the now-settled lawsuit from 2021, where a former exec said Rivian had a “toxic bro culture that marginalizes women.”
A design has been removed from Teepublic because of a copyright complaint from UnitedHealth, Gizmodo reports. The design is a drawing of Luigi Mangione in a heart, and doesn’t involve any UnitedHealth logos.
Cash App creator and former Square CTO Bob Lee died in April 2023 after being stabbed under the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.
Now, after a two-month trial, the New York Times, KRON4, and ABC7 Bay Area report that the jury deliberated for a week before finding Momeni, a tech consultant, guilty of second-degree murder.
Three years ago, I was surprised to find out Ozy Media existed, much less that its COO was caught impersonating a YouTube exec while trying to secure a $40 million investment from Goldman Sachs.
Now, its CEO has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison after being convicted over the summer on fraud and identity theft charges.
[The New York Times]
An extremely beige influencer’s allegations she was imitated by another, also extremely beige, influencer have cleared an early legal hurdle:
The judge apparently found plausible Gifford’s allegation that Sheil imitated her “outfits, poses, hairstyles, makeup, and voice” in a way that enabled Gifford’s followers to identify Gifford as the person whose identity was appropriated.
Be careful out there, beigefluencers.
[Technology & Marketing Law Blog]
The same three judges who ruled last week that a TikTok divest-or-ban law is Constitutional ruled against the company again today and declined to temporarily pause it from taking effect on January 19th.
In response, TikTok said again that it’s taking the case to the Supreme Court.
