Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

February 21, 2025
Amended Complaint Filed Against OPM, Health Agencies, Over Removal Of Webpages

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Doctors for America and the city and county of San Francisco filed an amended complaint in a District of Columbia federal court accusing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) of exceeding its authority in directing government health agencies, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 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.”
February 20, 2025
Judge Tosses Sex Trafficking Case, Rejects Internet Traffic Monitoring Argument

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge dismissed with leave to amend a suit against franchisors and their parent company and franchisees, accusing them of sex trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), finding that though the plaintiff, the mother of a trafficking victim, alleged liability under the TVPRA due to the parent company’s ability to monitor motel guests internet access, the plaintiff did not establish that the parent company and the franchisors owed a duty of care to the victim.
February 20, 2025
9th Circuit Affirms Ruling Dismissing Sex Trafficking Suit Against Grindr

PASADENA, Calif. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling dismissing with prejudice a negligence, product liability and federal sex trafficking suit against Grindr Inc. and Grindr LLC, the operators of the Grindr app, alleging that they are liable for injuries the plaintiff sustained as an underaged user of the app, finding that the lower court correctly dismissed the claims as barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
February 19, 2025
Media Tech Insurer, Financial Services Firm Settle Data Breach Coverage Dispute

SEATTLE — A media tech insurer that filed suit and its financial services firm insured filed a notice in a Washington federal court indicating they have settled the insurer’s lawsuit seeking a declaration that it has no duty to defend or indemnify the insured for a bank’s indemnification demand for a data breach incident and a related subrogation lawsuit brought by the bank’s insurer.
February 14, 2025
Magistrate Sustains Some Deposition Objections In Social Media Addiction MDL

OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal magistrate judge sustained some objections in a product liability multidistrict ligation over the purported addictive qualities for adolescents of several of the largest social media platforms, finding that certain deposition topics related to the “factual basis” for the plaintiff states’ beliefs “are contention deposition topics” and not appropriate for the MDL.
January 22, 2025
COMMENTARY: Relying On Loper Bright’s Elimination Of Chevron Deference, Sixth Circuit Reverses FCC And Holds That Internet Service Is An Information Service Under The Communications Act

By Alan Galloway, Hannah Donahue and John D. Seiver
February 13, 2025
Car Dealership Software Company Accuses Competitor Of Hacking Its Data

SAN FRANCISCO — A developer of auto dealership management system (DMS) software filed a complaint against its competition in California federal court for allegedly hacking its proprietary data to gain a competitive advantage in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL), while also moving to dismiss the competitor’s lawsuit in the same court accusing it of violating UCL and antitrust laws.
February 13, 2025
Judge Tosses Suit Against Digital Currency Company Over $1M In Lost Wallet Funds

BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge on Feb. 12 dismissed a Texas-based company’s suit seeking to replace $1 million of a digital asset that was mistakenly transferred to an inaccessible account, finding that the digital currency company “is not obligated to redeem” the missing currency due to the Texas company’s failure to plead conditions that would allow it to redeem the digital currency.
February 13, 2025
Suit Tossed For No Jurisdiction Absent Evidence Of Website Targeting Residents

JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi federal judge dismissed a breach of contract and bad faith suit against an international travel insurer and its purported agent over the insurer’s failure to reimburse medical expenses, finding that because the insured failed to provide evidence showing that the insurer’s website was designed to specifically target Mississippi residents, the court lacks personal jurisdiction over the insurer.
February 12, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Rejection Of Blockchain Patent Application

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 11 affirmed a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision to reject a man’s patent application regarding blockchain technology, agreeing with the PTAB that his claims were indefinite and directed at unpatentable material.
July 22, 2024
Claims Trimmed From Remanded Crypto Wallet Data Breach Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — A cryptocurrency wallet firm and two of its business partners saw their motions to dismiss a suit over a 2020 data breach partly granted, as a California federal judge found some claims to be preempted by a forum selection clause and others to be insufficiently pleaded.
February 12, 2025
Judge Dismisses Contractor, Allows Only UCL Claim In Crypto Wallet Data Breach Row

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted a subcontractors’ motion to dismiss claims against it related to a crypto wallet data breach incident after finding the claims fall under a forum selection clause requiring exclusive jurisdiction in France despite it being a nonsignatory to the contract, but declined to dismiss the plaintiffs’ putative class claim accusing the French parent company of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL).
February 12, 2025
Federal Circuit Says AI Researcher Again Fails To Show Government Took Research

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has again upheld the dismissal of a pro se complainant’s claims against the U.S. government, rejecting arguments that the government inappropriately used his research into artificial intelligence and that a judge in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims committed judicial misconduct in overseeing the case.
February 11, 2025
Federal Circuit: District Court Patent Claims Not Estopped By PTAB Findings

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Delaware federal judge was wrong to dismiss a patent infringement claim against Groupon Inc., a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Feb. 10; the panel said that prior decisions of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) cannot estop a patent holder from asserting infringement arguments based on other patent claims that were not considered by the board.
February 11, 2025
Enforcement Of Settlement, Attorney Fees In GoDaddy TCPA Class Case Denied

MOBILE, Ala. — A federal judge in Alabama denied a motion to enforce a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class settlement with GoDaddy.com LLC, writing that the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a July 2024 opinion vacated the District Court’s settlement approval as well as its ruling on attorney fees, clearing the way for the web hosting company to terminate the agreement.
February 10, 2025
Parents Of Deceased U.K. Children Sue TikTok Over Blackout Challenge, Designs

WILMINGTON, Del. — Four parents of deceased minors who resided in the United Kingdom filed a wrongful death suit in a Delaware state court against TikTok LLC, its subsidiary TikTok Inc. and their parent company, ByteDance Inc., alleging that the defendants “engineered addiction-by-design and programming decisions aimed at pushing children into maximizing their engagement with TikTok by any means necessary,” resulting in their children participating in a blackout challenge that purportedly caused their deaths.
February 07, 2025
Dismissal Denied In Internet Defamation Case Over Lobster Sustainability Rating

PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine federal judge on Feb. 6 denied a motion to dismiss filed by a nonprofit organization that publishes sustainability ratings for seafood, including lobster, in a suit accusing it of defamation related to its assigning a negative environmentally sustainability rating for Maine lobster, finding that the complaint alleges sufficient facts to “survive” the dismissal motion as to Maine’s anti-SLAPP statute and sufficiently asserts that the nonprofit acted negligently in publishing information about the rating.
February 06, 2025
IBM To High Court: 5th Circuit’s Contract Ruling Unrelated To Copyrights

WASHINGTON, D.C. — International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) told the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 5 that it should not grant a petitioner company’s request for a writ of certiorari because there was no error when the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a $1.6 billion award in a contract dispute between the companies.
February 05, 2025
4th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Tort Suit Against Meta Over ‘Harmful Content’

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 4 affirmed a lower court’s ruling dismissing claims for negligence and federal civil rights violation claims against Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) regarding its “harmful content” for damages allegedly caused by Facebook’s algorithm that recommends third-party content to users, finding in part that the state tort law claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and some of the federal claims are barred by the statute of limitations.
February 05, 2025
CrowdStrike Says Stranded Travelers’ Claims Against It Are Preempted

AUSTIN, Texas — Tech company CrowdStrike Inc. on Feb. 4 filed a motion in Texas federal court to dismiss or strike a putative class complaint brought against it by travelers who accuse it of negligence for allegedly leaving them stranded in airports by causing 8.5 million computers to crash in one day, writing that federal law preempts such claims.
February 05, 2025
9th Circuit Hears Oral Argument In Antitrust Dispute Over Google Play App Monopoly

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral argument in an antitrust dispute over a lower court’s entry of judgment in favor of Epic Games Inc. and issuance of an injunction, which among other things prohibits Google from requiring the use of Google Play Billing in apps distributed on Google Play Store.
February 04, 2025
High Court Ruling Sought On Grievance, Tolling In Social Media, Suspension Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A police officer filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking consideration of tolling and grievance questions after a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that the officer’s claims that his suspension over Facebook posts constituted First Amendment violations under 42 U.S. Code Section 1983 failed to show that the clock on his claims was stalled while he challenged his suspension or that the applicable one-year prescriptive period was interrupted by two state court petitions.
February 04, 2025
Nicaragua Can’t Use Email, WhatsApp To Serve Debtors Owing $1.5M In Attorney Fees

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge denied a motion by the Republic of Nicaragua for leave to use alternative service to serve respondents abroad against whom it seeks to enforce an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) award worth more than $1.5 million in attorney fees for an oil investment arbitration it won, writing that Nicaragua did not prove that such service was warranted.
February 03, 2025
Trade Association Seeks Reversal In Calif. Social Media Parental Consent Law Row

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A nationwide trade association for internet companies filed an opening brief in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, asking the court to reverse the portions of a lower court ruling denying a preliminary injunction to prevent the enforcement of a California law requiring parental consent for minors to access personalized feeds on social media after the trial court held that certain portions of the law do not violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
February 03, 2025
User Dismisses Class Suit Claiming LinkedIn Trained AI On Users’ Private Messages

SAN FRANCISCO — Less than two weeks after filing a putative class action in California federal court accusing LinkedIn of violating federal law and California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by accessing its premium users’ private messages to train artificial intelligence models without their consent, the plaintiff, a premium user of LinkedIn’s professional networking and social media site, filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice.