Telecommunications

  • June 26, 2024

    New Hampshire Claims TikTok Exploits Kids For Profit

    Social media titan TikTok is exploiting children by intentionally designing its platform to be addictive, so children will keep scrolling on the app for as long as possible, the state of New Hampshire argues in a heavily redacted lawsuit in state court.

  • June 26, 2024

    Artists Drum Up Support For Bill To Pay Music Royalties

    Congress needs to protect musical artists' intellectual property rights by requiring radio broadcasters to pay royalties for airing their sound performances, as most other countries do, the recording industry told lawmakers Wednesday.

  • June 26, 2024

    FCC Threatens To Yank Texas AM Station License Over Fees

    A Spanish-language Christian radio station is about to have its license snatched away by the Federal Communications Commission if it doesn't do something about its delinquent regulatory fees, according to new proceedings initiated by the agency.

  • June 26, 2024

    FCC To Finalize Funding For School Wi-Fi Hot Spots

    The Federal Communications Commission plans to vote in July on final rules to help schools pay for Wi-Fi hot spots, part of a Democratic effort to address off-campus connectivity gaps through federal aid.

  • June 26, 2024

    House GOP Gears Up For The End Of Chevron Deference

    A new memo outlines how House Republicans are gearing up for the U.S. Supreme Court to potentially overturn the decades-old precedent that courts defer to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes, as an opportunity to roll back the Biden administration's policies and reclaim Congress' power.

  • June 26, 2024

    FCC Allows Foreign Stake In Montana Telecom After Review

    The Federal Communications Commission is allowing a pair of foreign nationals to move forward with their acquisition of Montana telecommunications company iSmart and its multinational parent, saying the federal government concluded a national security review of the transfer and that iSmart's parent company, Truphone, satisfied requirements from a 2022 consent decree it entered with the FCC.

  • June 26, 2024

    AT&T Strikes Deal To Exit Former Exec's Age Bias Suit

    AT&T reached a deal Wednesday to resolve a former assistant vice president's suit alleging he was fired because he's a 58-year-old white man, a filing in Georgia federal court said.

  • June 26, 2024

    High Court Axes Challenge To Biden Admin's Social Media Work

    The U.S. Supreme Court wiped out a Fifth Circuit order prohibiting the Biden administration and several federal agencies from working with social media platforms to combat the spread of misinformation Wednesday, finding the states and individuals challenging the collaboration don't have standing to sue.

  • June 25, 2024

    Disney Must Face Trimmed ESPN Streaming Fee Antitrust Suit

    A California federal judge on Tuesday threw out some antitrust claims in a sprawling proposed class action over Disney's ESPN livestreaming carriage agreements, although he permitted other portions of the suit to proceed, finding that consumers have adequately alleged Disney's actions could have hobbled competition.

  • June 25, 2024

    NFL Moves To Sack Commercial Class In Sunday Ticket Trial

    An attorney for the NFL argued on the eve of closing arguments Tuesday that jurors shouldn't be allowed to consider damages for one of two plaintiff classes in a multibillion-dollar antitrust trial over the league's DirecTV Sunday Ticket television package. 

  • June 25, 2024

    Google Says Epic's Play Store Changes Could Cost $137M

    Google urged a California federal judge Monday to reject Epic Games' proposed Play Store remedies following Epic Games' antitrust jury trial win, arguing that the changes could cost up to $137 million plus ongoing maintenance costs and create new security risks while potentially harming Google's reputation.

  • June 25, 2024

    AT&T Says No Windfall From FirstNet Managing 4.9 GHz Band

    AT&T is finally weighing in on the robust debate over whether the FCC should hand over control of the recently revamped 4.9 gigahertz public safety band to an entity with strong ties to the telecom behemoth, denying that it would get a "windfall" if the agency were to go through with it.

  • June 25, 2024

    Verizon To Pay $1M For Southeast 911 Outage, FCC Says

    Verizon has agreed to pay just more than $1 million and follow a compliance plan after a December 2022 breakdown of 911 connectivity throughout the Southeast, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.

  • June 25, 2024

    No Need To Ship Net Neutrality Appeals To DC, 6th Circ. Told

    The Sixth Circuit should stand up to the "concerted effort" to push administrative law matters out of other appellate courts and into the D.C. Circuit by refusing to transfer a bundled set of challenges to the FCC's new net neutrality rules, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said.

  • June 25, 2024

    FCC Says Anti-Redlining Rule 'Dutifully' Carries Out Law

    The Federal Communications Commission has urged the Eighth Circuit to toss multiple industry challenges to its rules against discrimination in broadband deployment, saying its use of a wide-reaching standard for prohibited bias fits the law's requirements.

  • June 25, 2024

    Sinclair Accused Of Violating Video Privacy Law

    Sinclair Inc. was hit with a lawsuit in Illinois state court Monday alleging it uses tracking technology to see which videos users watch on its tennis streaming service and target advertisements to them accordingly, in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act.

  • June 25, 2024

    Noteholder Deal Spares Telecom WOM From Ch. 11 Dismissal

    Chilean telecommunications company WOM told Delaware's bankruptcy court it reached a deal with a group of noteholders and the unsecured creditors committee to resolve their bid to dismiss the debtor's bankruptcy case. 

  • June 25, 2024

    EU Opens Microsoft Case, Unappeased By Teams Unbundling

    European Union antitrust authorities opened a formal complaint against Microsoft on Tuesday over the company's bundling of its Teams communications program with its Office 365 suites, calling out as insufficient the disconnection of the services Microsoft initiated last year to appease enforcers.

  • June 24, 2024

    Localities Redouble Effort To Block House Broadband Bill

    The U.S. Conference of Mayors is leaning on Congress to abandon the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023, saying the bill is trying to cut red tape for broadband permitting at the expense of local governments' control over their own territories.

  • June 24, 2024

    DC Circ. Affirms Verizon Win In Conspiracy Defamation Row

    The D.C. Circuit upheld the toss of a conservative commentator's defamation suit over a Yahoo News podcast that covered the 2016 killing of a Democratic National Committee staffer and the conspiracy theories the homicide produced, ruling that the commentator's allegations fell short of the actual malice threshold.

  • June 24, 2024

    Harvard Prof Calls NFL Sunday Ticket 'Highly Anticompetitive'

    A Harvard law professor testified Monday in a multibillion-dollar antitrust lawsuit over the NFL's Sunday Ticket that pooling teams' television rights into exclusive deals is not like Beyoncé having an exclusive music distributor — as an NFL expert testified — but like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish pooling rights.

  • June 24, 2024

    Apple, Amazon Assail Hagens Berman's Class Rep 'Charade'

    Apple and Amazon.com blasted Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP for trying to "have it both ways" in an antitrust suit over a pact between the companies restricting Amazon iPhone and iPad sales to approved vendors, arguing the firm cannot withdraw its original named plaintiff without forcing him to testify.

  • June 24, 2024

    Sirius XM Made Millions Off Hidden Royalty Fee, Suit Alleges

    Sirius XM Radio Inc. has been tricking customers into paying an extra 21% every month by tacking a hidden "royalty fee" onto bills, according to a new proposed class action alleging that the fee is responsible for every bit of the company's profits for the last several years.

  • June 24, 2024

    Broadband Advocates Urge FCC To Revisit Subsidy Fees

    Advocates for broadband expansion are asking the Federal Communications Commission to revisit an April decision that exempted internet service providers, at least for now, from contributions to the FCC's telecom subsidy program.

  • June 24, 2024

    AT&T Must Keep Basic Services Intact, Calif. Regulators Say

    California regulators have required AT&T to maintain its commitment to basic phone service by denying its bid to withdraw as a "carrier of last resort," a decision that has prompted the company to pursue legislation that would maintain the designation only for rural communities that have limited options for telecom service.

Expert Analysis

  • The Scope Of Challenged Claims After Fed. Circ. Sisvel Ruling

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    Joshua Weisenfeld at Sheppard Mullin considers the Federal Circuit's recent Sisvel v. Sierra decision and its impact on claim construction and post-issuance claim amendments that broaden the scope of challenged claims.

  • Tips For Avoiding Disputes From M&A Earnout Provisions

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    Attorneys at Freshfields review key Delaware cases to outline several important considerations that may reduce the risk of an earnout dispute arising from a merger agreement and help the parties navigate disputes when they do occur.

  • A Look At Successful Bid Protests In FY 2023

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    Attorneys at Sheppard Mullin look beyond the statistics in the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s recent annual report on bid protests, sharing their insights about nine categories of sustained protests, gained from reading every fiscal year 2023 decision in which the protester had a positive result.

  • Trending At The PTAB: Administrative Procedure

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    A pair of recent Federal Circuit rulings on Patent Trial and Appeal Board inter partes review shed light on applications of the Administrative Procedure Act, adding to an ever-growing body of case law showing the board's final written decision must be based on arguments clearly put forth by the parties, say Robert High and Benjamin Saidman at Finnegan.

  • Retailers: Beware Legislator And Regulator Junk Fee Focus

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    In light of the Biden administration’s recent focus on restricting so-called junk fee surcharges across industries, attorneys at Benesch discuss what retailers should know about several evolving developments, including a new California law, a proposed Federal Trade Commission rule, an expanding litigation landscape, and more.

  • Navigating Discovery Of Generative AI Information

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    As generative artificial intelligence tools become increasingly ubiquitous, companies must make sure to preserve generative AI data when there is reasonable expectation of litigation, and to include transcripts in litigation hold notices, as they may be relevant to discovery requests, say Nick Peterson and Corey Hauser at Wiley.

  • Finding Focus: Strategies For Attorneys With ADHD

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    Given the prevalence of ADHD among attorneys, it is imperative that the legal community gain a better understanding of how ADHD affects well-being, and that resources and strategies exist for attorneys with this disability to manage their symptoms and achieve success, say Casey Dixon at Dixon Life Coaching and Krista Larson at Stinson.

  • Takeaways From Iran Missile Procurement Advisory

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    Companies should familiarize themselves with the entities and practices highlighted in the recent multiagency Iran Ballistic Missile Procurement Advisory, to avoid falling prey to deceptive practices that help bad actors evade sanctions, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • Safe-Harbor Period Change Could Hinder TCPA Compliance

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    A proposed rule change under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission would require businesses to honor do-not-call requests within 24 hours of receipt for calls and texts that are subject to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and companies have already called it unreasonable, say Aaron Weiss and Danny Enjamio at Carlton Fields.

  • Cos. Must Address Growing Chatbot Class Action Risk

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    Following a new wave of chatbot-related consumer data privacy litigation and expanding compliance obligations created by state legislatures, businesses using such technology face a high-risk environment for wiretapping allegations, with inconsistent court rulings to date and uncertain legal holdings ahead, say attorneys at Pierce Atwood.

  • Attorneys, Law Schools Must Adapt To New Era Of Evidence

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    Technological advancements mean more direct evidence is being created than ever before, and attorneys as well as law schools must modify their methods to account for new challenges in how this evidence is collected and used to try cases, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • 5 Telecom Issues To Watch Amid FCC Broadband Proposal

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    The Federal Communications Commission's recent proposal to restore net neutrality rules and reassert its regulatory authority over broadband providers is likely to spark debate over certain issues, including privacy rules and questions surrounding the commission's legal authority, says Matthew DelNero at Covington.

  • Series

    ESG Around The World: The UK

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    Following Brexit, the U.K. has adopted a different approach to regulating environmental, social and governance factors from the European Union — an approach that focuses on climate disclosures by U.K.-regulated entities, while steering clear of the more ambitious objectives pursued by the EU, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • Tips For Litigating Against Pro Se Parties In Complex Disputes

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    Litigating against self-represented parties in complex cases can pose unique challenges for attorneys, but for the most part, it requires the same skills that are useful in other cases — from documenting everything to understanding one’s ethical duties, says Bryan Ketroser at Alto Litigation.

  • Opinion

    Test Results Signal Poor Odds For Lead Cables Litigation

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    After sites in New York and New Jersey allegedly contaminated with lead by telecommunications cables were found by state and federal agencies to present no imminent threats to public health, it seems unlikely that mass litigation over this issue by plaintiffs firms or state attorneys general will succeed, says Andrew Ketterer at Ketterer & Ketterer.

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