Telecommunications

  • April 30, 2025

    Meta Engineers Call WhatsApp Hack 'Unprecedented' At Trial

    Meta Platforms engineers testified Wednesday during a California federal jury trial over how much Israeli spyware-maker NSO Group owes Meta for hacking 1,400 WhatsApp users' devices that they spent days working around-the-clock to combat NSO's "unprecedented" spyware attack.

  • April 30, 2025

    Calif. Privacy Agency Inks Cooperation Pact With UK Authority

    The California Privacy Protection Agency has taken its latest step toward boosting its collaboration with data protection authorities around the world, announcing Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the U.K.'s privacy regulator to compare investigative methods, research into new technologies and other vital tools.

  • April 30, 2025

    CEO Asked How Rivals Can Possibly Match Google Money

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified Wednesday that the Justice Department's proposed monopolization fixes amount to a "de facto divestiture" of the company's entire search intellectual property, only for the D.C. federal judge to wonder how rival search engines could hope to match its financial resources.

  • April 30, 2025

    FCC Could Ban Foreign Adversaries' Testing Labs

    The Federal Communications Commission plans to vote in May on whether to ban U.S. operations of telecom equipment test labs owned by foreign adversaries.

  • April 30, 2025

    Senate Bill Would Make FCC List Foreign Foes' Telecom Stakes

    The U.S. Senate will consider a bipartisan bill to direct the Federal Communications Commission to publish a list of foreign adversaries' ownership stakes in regulated companies.

  • April 30, 2025

    Full 4th Circ. Avoids Constitutionality Of Geofence Warrants

    The full Fourth Circuit was of many minds Wednesday morning as it ruled to co-sign the appellate court's previous finding upholding the use of a so-called geofence warrant to pinpoint a man's location in order to bring robbery charges against him.

  • April 30, 2025

    3rd Circ. Preview: NJ To Defend ICE Contractor Law In May

    The Third Circuit's argument lineup for May will see the state of New Jersey defend a law barring its immigration detention centers from contracting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while Rutgers University seeks to keep its victory over claims it falsely inflated its business school's ranking.

  • April 30, 2025

    Senate Bill Moves Ahead To Beef Up FCC Disaster Reports

    A bipartisan bill to require the Federal Communications Commission release more data on disaster-related network outage reports cleared a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday.

  • April 30, 2025

    TikTok Exec Calls Facebook, Instagram 'Complements'

    A TikTok executive said Wednesday that his company views Facebook and Instagram as "complements" to the Chinese-owned short-form video platform rather than direct competitors playing in the same market, in testimony that largely supported the Federal Trade Commission's claim that Meta dominates personal social networking services.

  • April 30, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Revive Phone Number Privacy Suit Against X

    The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday declined to revive a Washington resident's putative class action that accused Twitter Inc., now called X, of deceptively obtaining his phone number, saying in an unpublished opinion that a state law he leaned on prohibited the fraudulent collection of telephone records, "not numbers."

  • April 30, 2025

    Akin Atty Returns To FCC To Lead Wireline Bureau

    After three years in private practice, the Federal Communications Commission has welcomed an Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP attorney back to the agency as the newest head of the commission's Wireline Competition Bureau.

  • April 30, 2025

    Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

    Enforcers opened high stakes court proceedings against Meta Platforms and Google for monopolization claims that could force the tech giants to sell pieces of the companies, while also moving ahead with several challenges and reviews of pending deals in other industries. Here, Law360 looks at the major merger review developments from April.

  • April 30, 2025

    Local Gov'ts Say FCC Must Tread Lightly On Deleting Regs

    The FCC is flying by the seat of its pants a little too much as it seeks to slash unnecessary regulations, a coalition of local governments have come together to tell the agency, saying that the docket "does not meet the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act."

  • April 30, 2025

    Senate Panel Clears Trump's Pick For 3rd FCC Republican

    A key U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday advanced President Donald Trump's nominee for the third Republican seat on the Federal Communications Commission.

  • April 29, 2025

    2nd Circ. Not Sure FCC Fine Denied Verizon's Trial Right

    Second Circuit judges questioned Tuesday why the feds couldn't fine Verizon millions of dollars for location data misuse since the telecom carrier has the option of refusing to pay and demanding a jury trial if the U.S. Department of Justice comes to collect.

  • April 29, 2025

    State Telecom Roundup: Funding Security Without The Feds

    The Trump administration has made it clear that it expects states to take the reins regarding cybersecurity infrastructure and disaster preparedness and that the feds plan to step back, but not all states are equally prepared for that task.

  • April 29, 2025

    Meta Seeks Punitives For NSO WhatsApp Hack As Trial Opens

    Meta's counsel told a California federal jury during trial openings Tuesday that Israeli spyware-maker NSO Group owes nearly $445,000 plus punitive damages for its "despicable" conduct hacking 1,400 WhatsApp users' devices, while NSO's counsel denied owing Meta anything and criticized Meta's case as a PR attempt to "own the narrative."

  • April 29, 2025

    Judge Mulls If Google Could Still Vie To Be Default Search

    A D.C. federal judge probed potential middle grounds Tuesday for how to give Google's search engine rivals a leg up against the company's monopoly, asking how to avoid a "duopoly" with Microsoft and if Google might be permitted to continue paying browsers and phonemakers for default placement.

  • April 29, 2025

    CRT Buyers Want $3.7B In Damages After Price-Fixing Default

    Groups of buyers in long-running litigation over an alleged conspiracy to fix cathode ray tube prices asked a California federal court for $3.7 billion in damages after a default judgment against Chinese electronics company Irico Group for failing to preserve evidence.

  • April 29, 2025

    Meta Looks To Delete User Antitrust Claims Over Pay For Data

    Meta urged a California federal court Monday to end antitrust claims from consumers alleging they should be paid for their data, saying flawed expert theories that doomed class certification also sink the entire case for the remaining individual plaintiffs.

  • April 29, 2025

    Mexico Put On Latest USTR Priority IP Watch List

    The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Tuesday issued its annual global intellectual property report that has placed close trading partner Mexico on its list of countries to keep the closest eye on.

  • April 28, 2025

    Meta Gets Jury In Damages Trial Over NSO's WhatsApp Hack

    A California federal judge empaneled eight jurors Monday to decide how much Israeli spyware-maker NSO Group owes Meta Platforms for hacking into 1,400 WhatsApp users' devices, selecting from a pool of dozens of San Francisco Bay Area residents, many of whom criticized Meta, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the Israeli government.

  • April 28, 2025

    ITC Affirms Optimum's Network Patent Case Is Over

    The U.S. International Trade Commission has decided not to breathe any new life into Optimum Communications Services Inc.'s patent infringement case against several Chinese tech companies over network switching and routing patents, but it also cut part of an agency judge's findings on ownership of the patents.

  • April 28, 2025

    FCC Tells Courts 5th Circ. Wrong To Kill $57M AT&T Fine

    The Federal Communications Commission defended multimillion-dollar fines against T-Mobile and Verizon in letters to the D.C. Circuit and Second Circuit, urging the appeals courts not to heed the Fifth Circuit's toss of a related $57 million privacy fine against AT&T.

  • April 28, 2025

    Exec 'Can't Believe' X Offers Itself As Place For Friends

    The Federal Trade Commission pressed executives and former leaders from X Corp., Strava, Pinterest and Reddit on Monday for all the things that distinguish their services from Meta Platforms Inc., painting Facebook and Instagram in D.C. federal court as effectively the only place to really connect with friends and family to show the social media giant's alleged monopoly.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.

  • Secret Service Failures Offer Lessons For Private Sector GCs

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    The Secret Service’s problematic response to two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump this summer provides a crash course for general counsel on how not to handle crisis communications, says Keith Nahigian at Nahigian Strategies.

  • Managing Sanctions Defense Across Multiple Jurisdictions

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    Companies called before multiple regulators to account for the same conduct in this era of increased global sanctions and import-control enforcement should consider national differences in law and policy, and proactively coordinate their responses in certain key areas, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession

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    About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • Opinion

    AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys

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    The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.

  • Antitrust Issues To Watch Amid Google Ad Tech Trial

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    Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. Department of Justice's advertising technology antitrust suit against Google in Virginia federal court, matters ranging from market definition to unified pricing will likely have far-reaching implications for the digital advertising industry, competition and innovation, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • What To Know About Latest Calif. Auto-Renewal Law Update

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    While businesses have about nine months to prepare before the recently passed amendment to California's automatic renewal law takes effect, it’s not too early to begin working on compliance efforts, including sign-up flow reviews, record retention updates and marketing language revisions, say Gonzalo Mon and Beth Chun at Kelley Drye.

  • Taking Stock Of FCC's New Spectrum Rule For Drones

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    While an order recently adopted by the Federal Communications Commission is intended to provide drones with rapid access to a limited amount of spectrum in the 5030-5091 megahertz band, the commission envisions an incremental approach to full usage that will play out over the course of the coming months and years, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • 3 Coverage Tips As 2nd Circ. 'Swipes Left' On Tinder Claim

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    The Second Circuit's recent opinion in Match Group v. Beazley Underwriting, overturning Tinder's victory on its insurer's motion to dismiss a coverage action, reinforces three best practices policyholders purchasing claims-made coverage should adhere to in order to avoid late-notice defenses, say Lynda Bennett and Alexander Corson at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • How Loper Bright Is Affecting Pending FCC Litigation

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    Pending challenges against Federal Communications Commission orders at the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright highlight that counsel must be familiar with the statutes, regulations and precedent relevant to the FCC to best navigate the rapidly changing compliance landscape, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

  • Series

    Round-Canopy Parachuting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Similar to the practice of law, jumping from an in-flight airplane with nothing but training and a few yards of parachute silk is a demanding and stressful endeavor, and the experience has bolstered my legal practice by enhancing my focus, teamwork skills and sense of perspective, says Thomas Salerno at Stinson.

  • Dealmaker Lessons From CFIUS' New Enforcement Webpage

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    The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’ recently launched webpage, which details the actions — and inactions — that led to enforcement activity, provides important insights for dealmakers about filing requirements, mitigation commitments and the cost of noncompliance, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • Why Now Is The Time For Law Firms To Hire Lateral Partners

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    Partner and associate mobility data from the second quarter of this year suggest that there's never been a better time in recent years for law firms to hire lateral candidates, particularly experienced partners — though this necessitates an understanding of potential red flags, say Julie Henson and Greg Hamman at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.

  • Google And The Next Frontier Of Divestiture Antitrust Remedy

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    The possibility of a large-scale divestiture in the Google search case comes on the heels of recent requests of business breakups as remedies for anticompetitive conduct, and companies should prepare for the likelihood that courts may impose divestiture remedies in the event of a liability finding, say Lauren Weinstein and Nathaniel Rubin at MoloLamken.

  • Considering Possible PR Risks Of Certain Legal Tactics

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    Disney and American Airlines recently abandoned certain litigation tactics in two lawsuits after fierce public backlash, illustrating why corporate counsel should consider the reputational implications of any legal strategy and partner with their communications teams to preempt public relations concerns, says Chris Gidez at G7 Reputation Advisory.

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