Courts

A federal judge has blocked a Florida law that would have made it illegal for social media sites to suspend or ban politicians from posting. The judge said the law was both discriminatory and a breach of the First Amendment. The controversial law ... was first proposed in February and signed by the state's governor in May. It was scheduled to take effect on July 1st, 2021, but was blocked by US District Judge via a preliminary injunction following a case brought by trade associations including social media companies. The law said social media companies could remove specific posts and suspend ... (view more)

A judge has thrown out two complaints from federal and state government that claimed Facebook broke competition laws. After the ruling, Facebook's market value rose to more than a trillion dollars. The first case was brought by the Federal Trade ... Commission (FTC), which said Facebook not only had a monopoly but had unfairly maintained it. The FTC said the monopoly was in the market of "personal social networking services" and that it's unfair actions included using technology to block interoperability between Facebook and other services. (Source: courtlistener.com ) Instagram Buyout Questioned ... (view more)

One of the key ways online advertising works has led to a court case alleging a breach of Internet users' privacy. A civil liberties group is taking legal action saying current regulations are too slow to have any effect. The Irish Council for Civil ... Liberties (ICCL) says IAB Tech Lab, which operates one of the world's main ad set-ups, is sharing revealing data about online activities without user consent. IAB is based in New York, though the legal case is against its branch in Hamburg, Germany to benefit from tighter rules in Europe. (Source: reuters.com ) Real Time Bidding Relies On Data The ... (view more)

A Californian city will pay $350,000 to two men it falsely accused of hacking its Dropbox account. Officials in Fullerton, California had actually sent a link that granted the access. The case involves two bloggers, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, ... who wrote about local government and regularly requested documents under public record laws. As some of these files were very large, officials would often upload them to a Dropbox folder and provide a link granting access. However, one such response in 2019 also mistakenly included a link giving access to a separate folder that included documents ... (view more)

A court has ruled a grocery store did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to make its website accessible to blind people. The ruling creates a confused national picture that may well end up in the Supreme Court. The ... current case involves a chain called Winn-Dixie. A blind man brought the case forward after finding three features of the website were incompatible with his screen-reading software: online prescription filling, a store locator and a digital coupon tool. Carlos Gil said this had a discriminatory effect as it meant that visits to physical stores in order ... (view more)

A federal judge says California can begin enacting a controversial law on net neutrality. Broadband companies who are suing to have the law thrown out had argued it should be put on hold until that case is complete. Net neutrality is a broad ... principle that all Internet traffic should be treated in the same way. Translated into practical effects that could mean barring broadband carriers from blocking otherwise legal content or charging extra to access specific services (such as Netflix). Federal rules on net neutrality have been a particularly contentious issue. At the moment that Federal ... (view more)

Ticketmaster will pay a $10 million fine for computer fraud and hacking. The company admitted responsibility for hacking an unnamed rival with the help of an employee who had previously worked there. The $10 million figure is calculated as the ... maximum $500,000 penalty for each of 20 cases of breaking the law through "unauthorized access of a protected computer." The fine is through a "deferred prosecution agreement" in which prosecutors hold off pursuing the case through the courts. As part of the agreement, Ticketmaster admitted breaking the law and must cooperate with prosecutors ... (view more)

A dispute over Internet law has led to a Presidential veto of a major defense bill. Lawmakers will now decide whether to reject Donald Trump's demands to remove rules on how websites and services handle content posted by users. The bill in question ... authorizes US military spending for the next year. One of the quirks of the US legislative system is that bills can include measures which have little or nothing to do with the main subject of the proposed law. These measures are often the result of negotiation between politicians. In this case, Trump wants the defense bill to include a repeal of ... (view more)

A man who was part of a hacking gang that stole medical records and tried to blackmail an accounting company has been sentenced to five years in prison. Nathan Wyatt was a member of a group calling themselves The Dark Overlord. British-born Wyatt ... had previously been extradited to the United States. He was charged with conspiracy against the US, threatening damage to a protected computer, and aggravated identify theft. Originally Wyatt pleaded not guilty. He later changed his plea to guilty on the conspiracy charge and received a five year prison sentence and ordered to pay $1,467,048 in ... (view more)

A judge has blocked a Department of Commerce ban on a Chinese messaging app. The judge said there wasn't enough specific evidence against the app to override free speech complaints. The department introduced the ban on WeChat (along with video app ... TikTok) following an executive order from the President. The ban meant it was illegal for app stores to distribute or update the apps in the US. The ban also outlawed US use of WeChat's mobile payment facility, which is hugely popular with American citizens of Asian descent. One estimate puts the number of US users at 19 million. In both cases, the ... (view more)