Court case

While the world awaits closing arguments later this year in the US government's antitrust case over Google's search dominance, a California judge has dismissed a lawsuit from 26 Google users who claimed that Google's default search agreement with Apple violates antitrust law and has ruined everyone's search results. Users had argued that Google struck a deal making its search engine the default on Apple's Safari web browser specifically to keep Apple from competi

Federal courts are full of cases that are challenging the authority of federal regulatory agencies, including the case of Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, which is pending before the Supreme Court as of January 2024. Hedge fund manager George Jarkesy was accused of committing fraud by misrepresenting himself to investors. The case was heard by an administrative law judge at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who imposed a fine and penalties, and ordered Jarkesy to disgorge $685,000 in unlawful profits.

In the fall of 2020, around the height of the debate over pandemic school closures, a lawsuit in California made a serious claim: The state had failed its constitutional obligation to provide an equal education to lower-income, Black and Hispanic students, who had less access to online learning. State officials distributed more than 45,000 laptops and more than 73,000 other computing devices to students, according to court documents in the case.

"We are extremely pleased that the FCC has adopted new and powerful rules prohibiting digital discrimination.  We have nonetheless challenged two small, but important provisions of the rules today in the U.S.

The Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Association of Business, and the Longview Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit over the Commission’s recent rulemaking that gives itself sweeping authority over the broadband marketplace.

Social media companies should be treated as utilities such as telephone or telegraph companies, a group of states led by Republican attorneys general told the US Supreme Court. In a friend-of-the-court brief, 19 states and the state legislature of Arizona wrote that the Supreme Court should uphold laws passed by Texas and Florida that restrict companies including Meta, YouTube, X and others fro

Apple's new App Store payment policies are stirring outrage among software developers who say the iPhone maker is skirting the intention of a court ruling. Apple will require developers to pay it a 27% commission if they use an alternative payment method, much like the company did in the Netherlands and South Korea in response to legal rulings over related issues in those countries. With this change, Apple is effectively saying “we refuse to back down,” said Fiona Scott Morton, a former antitrust official in the Obama administration.

The Universal Service Fund (USF) – which financially supports several of the Federal Communications Commission's high-cost and low-income broadband programs, at roughly $8 billion annually – has been going through a tough time. This past year saw the USF dragged before federal court in cases brought by a conservative public interest group questioning the fund's legality. The Fifth and Sixth Circuit courts initially ruled against the petitioners, but the Fifth Circuit then agreed to hear the case en banc in September and has yet to rule.

Google has tentatively settled a $5 billion lawsuit accusing the tech giant of secretly tracking the internet activities of millions of users who believed its Chrome browser protected their privacy while in “incognito” mode, according to court documents. The class action lawsuit, scheduled for a February 2024 trial, was temporarily halted by US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers after a preliminary settlement was reached between Google and the consumers’ lawyers. The lawsuit, originally filed in 2020, claimed that users in “incognito” mode were misled by Google’s Chrome browser, thinking

Google will allow developers on its Play app store to offer direct payment options to users in the company’s latest move to navigate increased regulatory scrutiny of its power. Google will allow apps to charge consumers directly rather than having to charge through Google.