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Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

  • December 09, 2025

    11th Circuit Dismisses Appeal Of Judgment For FTC In Deceptive Websites Dispute

    ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 8 dismissed an appeal of summary judgment and sanctions for violating a prior injunction by officers of a company operating websites that provided assistance with obtaining services such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and sold consumers’ data to third parties, finding in part that the appellate court lacked jurisdiction because the appeal was not timely.

  • December 09, 2025

    Attorney’s Remedies Are Sufficient To Avoid AI Misuse Sanctions, Judge Says

    PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon declined to impose sanctions for misuse of artificial intelligence in a trademark case after an attorney took responsibility for hallucinated cites and the plaintiff and its attorneys waived associated attorney fees and said they would undertake efforts to educate about the proper uses of the technology in the legal profession.

  • December 09, 2025

    NetChoice Challenge To Maryland’s Online Safety Act Allowed To Proceed

    BALTIMORE — A Maryland federal judge denied the Maryland attorney general’s motion to dismiss an eight-count amended complaint filed by an internet trade association representing Amazon, Google and others whose “mission is to promote online commerce and speech,” holding that the association plausibly alleges that a Maryland online safety law burdens protected editorial activity, reaches expressive conduct subject to First Amendment scrutiny and conflicts with federal law.

  • December 08, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Judge Wrong To Toss Meta Patent Row Without Claim Construction

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Dec. 5 opinion, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a Texas federal judge’s dismissal of an advertising technology company’s patent infringement suit against Meta Platforms Inc., finding that the dismissal hinged on a premature resolution of a disputed claim construction in Meta’s favor and a failure to credit the plaintiff-appellant’s factual allegations.

  • December 08, 2025

    Judge Issues Judgment Outlining Injunctions In Antitrust Suits Against Google

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In consolidated suits in which a District of Columbia federal judge determined that Google LLC violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, the judge on Dec. 5 issued an opinion and final judgment outlining prohibitory injunctions, including requiring Google not to condition the licensing of Google Play on the distribution or license “of any Google GenAI [emerging generative artificial intelligence] Product on any device sold in the United States.”

  • December 08, 2025

    Hawaii Sues ByteDance, TikTok Over Role In Minors’ ‘Social Media Addiction’

    HONOLULU — The state of Hawaii filed suit in Hawaii state court against ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries, ByteDance Inc., TikTok Inc. and TikTok Ltd. (collectively, TikTok), the operators of the TikTok social media platform, “for falsely marketing and promoting—to children and their families—an addictive and otherwise harmful social media platform.”

  • December 05, 2025

    John R. Cash Trust Sues Coca-Cola Over ‘Infringing Ad’ In NCAA Marketing Campaign

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The John R. Cash Revocable Trust sued The Coca-Cola Co. in a Tennessee federal court, alleging violation of state laws and the Lanham Act over Coca-Cola’s “Infringing Ad” allegedly using a singing voice that is “identifiable and attributable to Johnny Cash” without permission in a 2025 NCAA college football advertising campaign on television networks and across social media platforms.

  • December 04, 2025

    Judge Certifies Alexa Voice ID Biometric Data Class Suit, Excludes Named Plaintiff

    CHICAGO — A named plaintiff who signed up for Amazon.com Inc.’s Voice ID program after the filing of a suit would be subject to unique defenses that render him unfit to be a class representative, a federal judge in Illinois said while certifying claims that the company violated Illinois law by collecting certain biometric data through its Alexa artificial intelligence system.

  • December 03, 2025

    U.K. Plaintiffs’ Restitution Claim For ‘Honey’ Discount Losses Dismissed

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge dismissed with leave to amend a putative class action filed by citizens of the United Kingdom against two companies that own and operate the “Honey” discount-finding browser extension, finding that the plaintiffs’ claim for monetary restitution under California’s unfair competition law (UCL) is actually a claim for damages and, therefore, not recoverable.

  • December 03, 2025

    Revised Opinion Issued Finding No Monopoly In FTC Rival Buying Suit Against Meta

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Dec. 2 issued a revised opinion with “minimal redactions” after issuing an earlier redacted opinion entering judgment in favor of Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) regarding allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that Meta monopolized the personal social networking (PSN) market by buying rivals WhatsApp and Instagram, finding that the FTC failed to show that Meta has monopoly power in the relevant market.

  • December 02, 2025

    Federal Circuit Rejects Challenge To Reexamination Of Expired Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel once again ruled against a technology company on Dec. 1, affirming a finding of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain claims of the company’s patent describing a handheld device using a camera to receive gesture-based inputs are invalid as anticipated; the panel also dismissed the company’s appeal in part related to other patent claims that the appellate court had already held to be invalid.

  • December 01, 2025

    Illinois Panel: No Extra Expense Coverage Owed For Loss Arising From Cyberattack

    CHICAGO — An Illinois appeals court panel held that a management company for multiple nursing care facilities is not entitled to recover the expenses it incurred following a cyberattack on one of its payroll vendors, affirming a lower court’s ruling in favor of an insurer in the management company’s declaratory judgment lawsuit.

  • December 01, 2025

    Split 11th Circuit Stays Injunction That Prevents Fla. Social Media Law Enforcement

    ATLANTA — A split 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted the Florida attorney general’s motion to stay pending appeal of a preliminary injunction issued by a district court to stop enforcement of certain provisions of a Florida law that seeks to regulate access to certain social media platforms for Florida youth, finding “that the balance of the harms and the public interest favor a stay of the preliminary injunction.”

  • November 26, 2025

    Federal Circuit Says ‘Best’ Claim Limitation Invalid As Indefinite

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 25 affirmed a California federal judge’s finding that some claims in patents describing systems for routing streamed content over the internet were invalid as indefinite and likewise affirmed findings that the technology company’s products did not meet a claim limitation required by the patents at issue.

  • November 26, 2025

    DOJ Files Proposed Judgment In Antitrust Row With Rental Market Software Company

    GREENSBORO, N.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a proposed final judgment in a North Carolina federal court in an antitrust suit against RealPage Inc., a commercial revenue management software company, alleging that RealPage used nonpublic information obtained from landlords and runs the information through its algorithmic software to align pricing, thereby impeding the free market process.

  • November 25, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms Ruling Issuing $7.3M Sanction In Online Travel Marketing Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 24 affirmed a district court’s ruling issuing a permanent injunction barring certain individuals from future participation in multilevel marketing programs related to their participation in marketing internet-based travel services in violation of the FTC Act and imposing a sanction of $7,306,873.14 for violating a permanent injunction related to an earlier suit, finding that the sanction was appropriate and that the permanent injunction was “not overly broad.”

  • November 25, 2025

    Trade Association Seeks To Stop Enforcement Of Va. Social Media Monitoring Law

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Internet trade association NetChoice LLC filed a motion for preliminary injunction and a brief in support in its Virginia federal court suit seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent the Virginia attorney general from enforcing provisions of Senate Bill 854, a Virginia law that seeks to require social media platforms to determine whether a user is a minor, arguing in part that the law violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that the loss of First Amendment rights will inflict harm upon NetChoice members.

  • November 24, 2025

    Judge Dismisses Stolen Profits Suit Against PayPal Over ‘Honey’ Discount Finder

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge on Nov. 21 granted PayPal Inc.’s motion to dismiss a putative class action brought against it by influencers and content creators active on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram who accused it of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by using a discount-finding browser extension, “Honey,” to redirect profits from their market affiliate links to itself, finding that they lack standing for failure to allege an injury traceable to PayPal.

  • November 24, 2025

    5th Circuit Upholds Damages, Vacates Injunction In Software Trade Secrets Suit

    NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 21 affirmed a lower court’s award of $168,454,749 in compensatory and exemplary damages but vacated and remanded a permanent injunction in a dispute over the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets to develop a software platform by a technology consulting company, finding that requiring the technology consulting company to pay costs related to the software development while preventing it from using the software resulted in an overlap of the remedies which the lower court needs to address on remand.

  • November 21, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Wrong Construction Of Bot Detection Claim Leads To PTAB Reversal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 20 held that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrongly construed the claim term “acquiring interest data” when considering the patentability of a claim phrase in a patent describing a system to determine if a computer is being used by a human or a “bot”; under the correct construction, the panel held that the claim is anticipated by a prior art reference.

  • November 20, 2025

    IT Company: Fracking Proppant Supplier Misappropriated Trade Secrets And Software

    FORT WORTH, Texas — An IT services company has sued an energy company in Texas federal court alleging that it misappropriated trade secrets when it misused login credentials related to proprietary software code that the IT company created and managed for the energy company’s operations as a provider of proppants to the hydraulic fracturing industry.

  • November 20, 2025

    $3.25 Million Settlement, Injunctive Relief Approved In Student Data Breach Case

    LOS ANGELES — A California judge granted the state’s unopposed ex parte application for final judgment and a permanent injunction against a data storage provider, requiring the company to implement enhanced data security measures, undergo third-party audits for five years and pay $3.25 million in penalties after the state alleged that the provider failed to maintain data privacy safeguards that led to a 2022 breach exposing sensitive student information in at least 49 school districts.

  • November 19, 2025

    Judgment Entered For Meta In FTC Antitrust Suit Alleging Monopoly In Buying Rivals

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Nov. 18 entered judgment in favor of Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) regarding allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that Meta monopolized the personal social networking (PSN) market by buying rivals WhatsApp and Instagram, finding that the FTC failed to show Meta has monopoly power in the relevant market.

  • November 19, 2025

    Verizon Seeks U.S. Supreme Court Review Of FCC Forfeiture Order, $46.9M Penalty

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Verizon Communications Inc. filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling denying review of a Federal Communications Commission forfeiture order imposing a $46.9 million penalty for violating the Communications Act and related regulations regarding Verizon’s alleged failure to safeguard certain customer proprietary network information.

  • November 18, 2025

    High Court Won’t Review Ruling Upholding Dismissal Of UCL Suit Against Amazon

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 17 denied certiorari to a remanufacturer of ink cartridges seeking review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling affirming a lower court’s dismissal of a suit accusing Amazon.com Inc. and its subsidiaries of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL), the Lanham Act and other laws by allowing third-party sellers to post allegedly deceptive listings for recycled printer ink cartridges, thereby diverting business from authentic ink cartridge recyclers.