lawsuit

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed an antitrust lawsuit accusing Amazon of "illegally maintaining monopoly power." Critics argue the lawsuit is too vague, while redacted sections make it hard to assess in full. The FTC has filed the ... complaint alongside 17 state attorneys. It says Amazon "violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging." It also alleges that Amazon acts illegally to "wield monopoly power to inflate prices, degrade quality, and stifle ... (view more)

A former Facebook employee says the company deliberately drained the batteries of users as an experiment. George Hayward made the claims in a lawsuit that he has now withdrawn. Hayward says he was fired for refusing to work on the experiments. He ... originally sued the company, but has now withdrawn the case because of a rule that says he must go to arbitration. The lawsuit said the possibility of completely draining a battery and making phones inoperable put users at risk. This was especially the case "in circumstances where they need to communicate with others, including but not limited to ... (view more)

Google is facing a lawsuit for alleged "deceptive and unfair conduct" in its restaurant listings. The lawsuit claims it tricked users into using third-party delivery services from which it received a cut. Google has rejected the claims and said it ... offers restaurants the chance to get orders direct, with no fee for the search giant. The case centers on a special button reading "Order Online" that appears besides search results for restaurants. It takes users to a custom page which includes details of the restaurant, its address and its menu. The lawsuit says this is an "unauthorized online ... (view more)

Google will have to go to court to answer claims it misled users by tracking their online activity in a supposed private browsing mode. A judge agreed a lawsuit seeking $5 billion can go ahead with class action status. That status doesn't change ... Google's chances of winning or losing, but could mean much bigger consequences if it does lose. It means anyone meeting set criteria could effectively be treated as a plaintiff, eligible for any financial awards, without having to launch their own case. The case appears largely to come down to whether Google's wording is clear enough, rather than it ... (view more)

Internal Google documents show the company's own staff believe its privacy settings are confusing. The documents became public in a court case about unexpected location tracking. The state of Arizona is suing Google after an investigation into ... claims it was storing location data about mobile users even though they had turned off the Location History setting . The problem is that Google actually tracked location in multiple ways - each with their own settings. For example, there's a difference between Location History (a user feature that lets you check back through Google Maps to see where ... (view more)

Google faces a class action lawsuit over claims it "misled users of Chrome's private browsing mode." But suggestions users are in for a $5,000 windfall are premature, to say the least. That's the minimum amount the lawsuit seeks per affected user, ... though for starters that assumes not only that the plaintiffs win the case, but that the court agrees to that amount. It also assumes the amount isn't reduced by lawyer fees and that anyone eligible is able to sign up to the case and provide any necessary proof. The crux of the case, brought in the United States District Court for the ... (view more)

A judge in Georgia says she is "gravely concerned" that electronic voting machines could be hacked. But she says it's too late to scrap them for this year's elections. Amy Totenberg was ruling on a lawsuit originally filed May 2017 against Georgia's ... Secretary of State. It called for the use of the Direct Recording Voting machines to be banned for the elections. Among the arguments in the lawsuit were that the system doesn't create a paper trail for verifying any discrepancies; that the software on the machine could be altered or replaced without detection; and that the system makes it ... (view more)

Smart TV sets that passed on user data without permission might have to display a message suggesting users sue the manufacturers. It's an unusual proposal in a class action lawsuit. Last year Vizio agreed to pay $3.7 million in fines to settle ... investigations by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the New Jersey attorney general. The TVs in question used Internet connectivity (providing the TV was connected to Internet access at the home by the user), which then utilized a feature called "Smart Interactivity". Though the feature was enabled by default, users could switch it off ... (view more)

A proposed class action lawsuit accuses Bose of selling personal data about customers who use its wireless headphones. But the claims are unconfirmed and the argument may be somewhat overstated. Customer Kyle Zak made the complaint about Bose ... Connect, an app for iPhones and Android devices. The app isn't mandatory to use, but is designed to make it easier to switch between different headsets and speakers on a Bluetooth connection without needing to repeatedly pair and unpair the devices. Podcast Choices Could Be Revealing According to the lawsuit, Bose uses the app to collect details of ... (view more)

Apple is being sued after a fatal crash in which a driver was using the FaceTime video chat tool. The parents of the child who died are putting forward an unusual legal argument. Normally lawsuits relating to technology involve a product or service ... a company has made. In this case, Apple is under fire because of a feature it didn't develop. 5-year-old Moriah Modisette died when her parents car slowed and stopped as a result of a highway patrol stop 1,500 feet away. The driver of the car behind failed to stop and crashed into the rear of the Modisette car. The lawsuit says police ... (view more)