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Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

  • April 11, 2025

    Federal Circuit Agrees SAP Can’t Transfer Patent Case To Other Federal Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 10 denied a software company’s petition for a writ of mandamus compelling the transfer of a patent suit from one division of a Texas federal district court to another division in the same district, holding that the company failed to show that a federal judge’s decision to deny the transfer motion was not “patently erroneous.”

  • April 11, 2025

    Judge Keeps UCL Suit Against ‘Social’ Gambling Site In Federal Court

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied a motion filed by a plaintiff with a gambling addiction to remand his “representative” complaint asking the court to shut down an online “social” gambling website he says is operated in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), finding that the amount in controversy for federal jurisdiction is met based on the potential costs of the plaintiff’s sought relief to the website operator.

  • April 11, 2025

    Judge Grants Summary Judgment On ‘Fraud’ Claims For Facebook Ad Removal

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted Meta Platforms Inc.’s motion for summary judgment against a content publisher that accused Meta of breach of contract and violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) for removing its content from Facebook after the publisher spent more than 53 million Canadian dollars on Facebook advertising, finding that its claims were untimely.

  • April 11, 2025

    Patent Holder To High Court: Federal Circuit Wrong To Scrap Its Jury Win

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A software company patent holder tells the U.S. Supreme Court that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was wrong to vacate a jury’s verdict of $13.2 million in damages; the company says in its petition for certiorari that a Texas federal judge was right in the first place to deny judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of no direct infringement on the respondent company’s part.

  • April 11, 2025

    Judgment Entered For Nonprofit In Trademark Row Involving Website, Advertisements

    ORLANDO, Fla. — Having been advised that the parties reached an agreement to settle the case, a Florida federal judge entered final judgment for a nonprofit Florida health care company that sued an operator of Florida post-acute care and skilled nursing facilities for trademark infringement, granting a permanent injunction due to evidence of confusion between the two entities and enjoining the operator from engaging in trademark infringement, including in advertising and on its website.

  • April 10, 2025

    Class Suit Against OnlyFans Over ‘Chatter’ Scheme May Proceed Anonymously

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge on April 9 declined to dismiss putative class claims brought by California subscribers of adult website OnlyFans for an alleged “chatter scheme” in which they were allegedly deceived into paying to communicate with adult content creators, but instead were connected to “professional chatters,” and said the plaintiffs may proceed anonymously to avoid the risk of embarrassment from revealing private messages discussing their “sexual interests.”

  • April 10, 2025

    Claims Tossed In Cyberbullying Suit Against Daughter Over ‘Extreme’ Conduct

    OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma federal judge on April 9 dismissed most claims in a suit filed by a mother and daughter for alleged online stalking and “extreme” conduct against another daughter who says they are “estranged” from her, finding that the plaintiffs do not adequately state a claim for defamation, harassment, cyberbullying or assault but that the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress “narrowly survives dismissal.”

  • April 09, 2025

    Google, Class Plaintiffs Settle 14-Year-Old AdWords Suit For $100M

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A consumer and his company representing two certified classes of advertisers who claim that Google LLC misrepresented the benefits of its AdWords advertising service have moved in California federal court for preliminary approval of a $100 million settlement to claims against Google first filed in 2011 and say their attorneys will seek a 33% attorney fees award.

  • April 08, 2025

    Judge: Insurers Fail To Allege Subrogation Claims In Suit Over Ransomware Attack

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware judge granted an application service provider’s motion to dismiss with prejudice insurers’ amended complaints because the insurers failed to properly assert subrogation claims seeking recovery from the provider for the amount paid to nonprofit insureds for investigative and remediation steps arising from a ransomware attack.

  • April 08, 2025

    Trump Issues 2nd Order, Again Pausing Enforcement Of Act Banning TikTok

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump issued a second executive order pausing enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act until June 19, requiring the Department of Justice not to enforce the act, which would have resulted in a ban on the popular social network TikTok absent a corporate ownership change.

  • April 07, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms Ruling Dismissing Suit Over Alleged Faulty Internet Service

    NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 4 affirmed a lower court ruling dismissing a breach of contract suit against an internet provider and related parties in an appeal in which the appellant, an attorney, seeks vacatur of every ruling issued by a magistrate judge and alleges that inadequate internet services led to two underlying suits being dismissed for late filings, finding “minimal risk of prejudice” regarding the magistrate judge’s recommendations and “no ground to question the district court’s dismissal” of certain parties.

  • April 07, 2025

    Class Claims Against Apple For Slowing Iphones With Update May Proceed, Judge Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted in part and denied in part Apple Inc.’s motion to dismiss a putative class action brought against it by users of an older iPhone model who accuse it of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by deceiving them into downloading an iPhone software update that was optimized for newer-model iPhones and allegedly caused a slowdown in their devices.

  • April 04, 2025

    Panel Affirms Ruling Tossing Gun Marketplace Free Speech Suit Against Facebook

    PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Superior Court on April 3 affirmed a lower court order dismissing a suit filed by a gun marketplace platform, an automotive marketplace platform and their owner against Facebook Inc. and Instagram LLC alleging free speech violations under the Pennsylvania Constitution for removal of their social media accounts, finding that the platforms and their owner failed to show the removal “constituted acts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

  • April 04, 2025

    6th Circuit Finds Online Newsletter Subscriber Wasn’t A ‘Consumer’ Under VPPA

    CINCINNATI — Affirming a trial court’s ruling on April 3, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority found that a man’s suit over a sports website’s purported sharing of his video viewing history merited dismissal because he did not qualify as a “consumer” under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).

  • April 04, 2025

    9th Circuit Reverses Denial Of Discovery Of Online Article Author’s Identity

    SAN FRANCISCO — A district court erred in denying a foreign party’s request for discovery to learn the identities of the author of a purportedly defamatory online article and the operator of a website where it was posted, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, finding that the court wrongly based its denial on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution without determining whether any such rights were implicated.

  • April 03, 2025

    Class Representative Seeks $73M Judgment Against Company For Fake Reviews

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A plaintiff representing a certified class of consumers who claim that they were deceived by a Chinese manufacturer-owned company’s practice of faking reviews on Amazon.com to sell shoddy electronics in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws filed a motion in California federal court for default judgment following the withdrawal from proceedings by the defendant.

  • April 03, 2025

    Motions To Quash Denied In FTC ‘High Stakes’ Antitrust Suit Against Meta

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on April 2 denied nonparty witnesses’ motions to quash subpoenas, while allowing several witnesses to testify remotely, in the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) regarding its alleged monopolization of the personal social networking market, finding that pursuant to the Clayton Act, nationwide service of subpoenas on behalf of the government in antitrust suits is appropriate for good cause.

  • April 02, 2025

    Judge Permanently Enjoins Arkansas Law Restricting Minors’ Social Media Access

    FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — An Arkansas federal judge granted summary judgment to an internet trade association in its suit against Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin seeking to enjoin enforcement of a state law restricting minors’ access to social media platforms, finding that the act is unconstitutional and violates rights of Arkansas residents under both the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

  • April 01, 2025

    DOJ Seeks Judgment In Suit Over Webpage Removal Pursuant To ‘Gender Ideology’ EO

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a cross-motion for summary judgment in a suit filed against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and government health agencies accusing OPM of exceeding its authority in directing the agencies to remove webpages containing “a broad range of health-related data” in response to President Donald J. Trump’s executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

  • March 27, 2025

    9th Circuit Orders Meta To Respond To Mandamus Petition Over Discovery Order

    SAN FRANCISCO — Without providing explanation, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 26 ordered states and Meta Platforms Inc. to respond to a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to direct a district court to grant state attorneys general’s objection to a discovery order and stay the order in a product liability multidistrict ligation over the purported addictive qualities for adolescents of several of the largest social media platforms.

  • March 27, 2025

    High Court Hears Oral Arguments On FCC Authority Under Nondelegation Doctrine

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 26 heard oral arguments in consolidated cases filed by the Federal Communications Commission and telecom providers urging reversal of an en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that a subsidy program violates the “private nondelegation doctrine.”

  • March 26, 2025

    Seal Motions Granted In Computer Fraud Row Between Spyware Firm And WhatsApp

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal judge granted in part and denied in part motions to seal in WhatsApp’s suit against a spyware firm related to the firm’s alleged computer fraud, granting WhatsApp’s motion as to some requests because the “redactions are sufficiently narrow” and granting some of the spyware firm’s requests to seal regarding “limited redactions.”

  • March 24, 2025

    Apple Misled Consumers As To IPhone 16’s ‘AI-Driven’ Functions, Consumer Says

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A consumer filed a putative class action lawsuit in California federal court accusing Apple Inc. of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other state consumer laws by misleading millions of consumers into buying its latest iPhone models by misrepresenting the artificial intelligence capacities that the iPhone 16’s “Apple Intelligence” and Siri software would offer.

  • March 24, 2025

    Partial Dismissal Granted In Antitrust Suit Involving Broker And Alleged ‘Phishing’

    GREENBELT, Md. — A Maryland federal judge granted in part and denied in part motions to dismiss by stock exchange market makers and market participants and a broker-dealer in a Sherman Act and Exchange Act violation suit alleging that the broker used “phishing” emails to illegally access the plaintiff’s brokerage accounts and that the other defendants conspired to defraud the plaintiff by manipulating prices of certain securities.

  • March 21, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms Ruling Tossing ‘Illicit’ Ink Cartridge UCL Suit Against Amazon

    PASADENA, Calif. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 20 affirmed a lower court ruling that dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit by a remanufacturer of ink cartridges accusing Amazon.com Inc. and its subsidiaries of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL), the Lanham Act and other laws by allowing third-party sellers to post allegedly deceptive listings for recycled printer ink cartridges, thereby diverting business from authentic ink cartridge recyclers, finding that “to the extent claims” against Amazon “survive” the Communications Decency Act (CDA), the remanufacturer “has failed to allege an actionable false statement by Amazon.”