The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the FCC's ongoing refusal to adequately respond to FOIA requests. When the FCC's website was soliciting public comments over the controversial net neutrality policies last year, it received an alarmingly high number of comments from ostensibly fake accounts. The New York Times alleges that it has requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) the traffic details for that notice-and-comment period and that the FCC has failed to respond to multiple requests. In its complaint, the New York Times claims that the release of the "records . . . will shed light on the extent to which Russian nationals and agents of the Russian government have interfered with the agency notice-and-comment process about a topic of extensive public interest: the government's decision to abandon 'net neutrality.'"
Articles Posted in Internet Law
The FCC should investigate Verizon’s throttling of firefighters’ “unlimited data” that took place during California’s largest wildfire, two Senate Democrats recently argued.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided a case allowing the government to produce evidence from the Internet Archive (often referred to as the “Wayback Machine”). The July 2018 ruling supports a similar holding from the Third Circuit in 2011.
In a 4-3 opinion, the California Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Yelp.com cannot be ordered to remove negative posts against a San Francisco law firm that another judge determined were defamatory. The decision overturns a lower court’s ruling against Yelp, and affirms rules that protect internet platforms from legal liability over users’ posts.
The largest social media company in the world faces another legal battle. On Monday, April 16, 2018, US District Judge James Donato ruled in San Francisco federal court that a class action lawsuit could proceed with the allegation that Facebook illegally collected and stored its users biometric data without their permission.
Last week 16 Pulse shooting survivors filed a federal lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google claiming they helped spread terrorist propaganda with resulted in the deadly Orlando shooting.Specifically, the lawsuit claims that the major tech companies helped terrorists by "aiding, abetting, and knowingly providing support and resources to ISIS.” Without major social media website such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, plaintiffs argue ISIS would not have become a powerful terrorist organization, and the Pulse attack would not have occurred.
Craigslist closed down its personals section on Friday after Congress passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act “FOSTA” last week.
On Tuesday, March 20, 2018, Facebook Inc. was sued by its investors in San Francisco federal court over a claim that the social media company failed to uphold privacy for its users. Investors stated that they faced losses due to the company’s connection to a UK-based research firm, Cambridge Analytica, that collected data for 50 million users without their permission. The same research firm is also connected to President Donald Trump.
Bitcoin trader Morgan Rockoons will stand trial in San Diego after being indicted for failure to comply with federal anti-money laundering rules. His case highlights questions that authorities have wrestled with since the emergence of cryptocurrencies, namely whether they are subject to the same banking rules as government-recognized currency.
