Top Takeaways From Meta's $17B Kid Safety Deal

By Emily Field and Cara Salvatore

A $17.1 billion deal with 29 states and Meta Platforms Inc. that includes reforms to Facebook and Instagram to protect children is seen as a benchmark for other settlements with social media companies as litigation and public pressure mounts over mental health harms to youth.

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Meta Judge Quickly OKs $17B Deal Over Social Media Harms

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge overseeing a bellwether trial over claims Meta hid social media's harms to youth on Wednesday approved its $17.1 billion deal with 29 states, after a hearing in which she pressed lawyers on details of the deal and raised concerns about how Meta was handling attorney-client privilege issues.

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Meta Makes $17B Deal With States Over Child Harms

By Matthew Santoni

Meta has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion and enact reforms to Facebook and Instagram to resolve sprawling social media addiction claims, in the midst of a high-stakes bellwether trial over whether the company hid or downplayed its platforms' allegedly harmful impact on minors, state enforcers say.

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9th Circ. Backs Google Privacy Deal With No Class Payouts

By Allison Grande

A split Ninth Circuit panel Wednesday affirmed approval of a location data privacy deal that requires Google to pay $62 million to plaintiffs' counsel and third-party organizations but gives no money to individual class members, agreeing the structure was appropriate because direct distribution to all class members would be "infeasible."

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DOJ Flags Breach Of Internal Policies In Apple Suit

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice told a New Jersey federal judge Tuesday that its staffers breached internal policies when they shared personally identifiable information with an outside discovery vendor that was hired not by the department, but instead by the DOJ's state attorneys general partners, in the monopolization case against Apple.

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Lawmakers Press Commerce To Curb Exports To Adversaries

By Courtney Bublé

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the U.S. Department of Commerce to block U.S. citizens and businesses from working for foreign civilian intelligence and security agencies in Russia, China and other "countries of concern."

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Sens. Push Probe Of DOT's Failure To Protect Flyers' Privacy

By Gina Kim

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, asked the U.S. Government Accountabiliy Office Wednesday to investigate the U.S. Department of Transportation's "systemic abdication" and "regulatory neglect" of its consumer privacy enforcement mandates meant to protect air travelers' privacy, warning of "severe international and economic ramifications."

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Man Gets 42 Months For Tax Crimes, Fraud, Must Pay $1.2M

By Zak Kostro

An Oregon businessman who withheld employment taxes from employees' pay but did not pay the taxes to the IRS was sentenced to 42 months in prison for tax evasion and other crimes and ordered to pay nearly $1.2 million in restitution, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

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Joe Gibbs Racing Beats Ex-Director's Cyber Trespass Claims

By Hayley Fowler

Joe Gibbs Racing's former competition director can't pursue counterclaims alleging the NASCAR super team violated state and federal cyber hacking statutes when it allegedly accessed "off-limits" information on his devices during a forensic review, a North Carolina federal judge ruled Wednesday in their high-profile trade secrets dispute.

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Academy Mortgage Reaches $2M Data Breach Settlement

By Katryna Perera

Customers of Academy Mortgage Corp. have urged a Utah federal judge to grant the first OK to a nearly $2 million settlement they reached with the lender to resolve claims tied to a 2023 data breach.

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Lowe's Must Face Calif. Privacy Suit Over Web Trackers

By Gina Kim

Lowe's must face a twice-amended proposed class action alleging the home improvement retailer secretly collected and shared information about its website users with TikTok and Microsoft, contrary to its own privacy policy, a California federal judge said Wednesday, rejecting Lowe's argument that the data collection wasn't highly offensive.

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MyPillow CEO Lindell Appeals Smartmatic Sanctions Order

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has appealed a D.C. federal judge's sanctions order against him for filing what the court said were "frivolous" third-party claims and counterclaims against election systems company Smartmatic.

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Flock Surveillance Cameras Enable Stalking, Class Suit Says

By Kelcey Caulder

Flock's nationwide vehicle surveillance system has repeatedly been used for "personal surveillance and stalking" rather than for proper law enforcement purposes, a driver said in a proposed class action in Georgia federal court.

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Apollo Shareholders Say Their Data Was Exposed To Hackers

By Sydney Price

Shareholders of Apollo Global Management Inc. have launched a pair of proposed class action complaints in New York federal court accusing the asset manager of failing to secure and protect the personal information of customers from a recent data breach.

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Apple Seeks Win In Biometric Privacy Case, Citing 7th Circ.

By Celeste Bott

A recent Seventh Circuit decision affirming Samsung's win in a biometric privacy suit means Apple should prevail over similar claims, the tech giant has told an Illinois federal judge, arguing for summary judgment in a class action alleging that Apple's Photos app collects users' faceprints without permission.

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Samsung, Apple Warn Against Google Payment Ban

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

Samsung and Apple told the D.C. Circuit that they are backing he district court's decision to reject a proposed ban on Google's payments to device distributors, with Samsung saying the ban would deprive it of the revenue it needs to help fund research and development in its mobile business unit and Apple saying it would only benefit Google at the expense of customers and third parties. 

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Calif. Bill Curbing PE Role In Litigation Heads To Newsom

By Lauren Berg

A California bill to ban corporate investors from influencing litigation strategy is heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk after passing with bipartisan support from the state Legislature.

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Pillsbury Settles Ex-Recruiting Director's Pregnancy Bias Suit

By Grace Elletson

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP has settled a Black former director's suit claiming the law firm fired her weeks after she shared that she was pregnant and would need accommodations, according to a Tennessee federal court filing.

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Prosecutors Say Goldstein Must Stay Behind Bars

By Jared Foretek

Federal prosecutors told the Fourth Circuit on Tuesday to keep convicted Supreme Court attorney Thomas Goldstein behind bars while he appeals his conviction, arguing that he remains a serious flight risk with wealthy overseas connections and "an ongoing danger" whose tax crimes continued "even after conviction."

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Arizona Atty Reprimanded For Series Of AI Errors

By Matt Perez

An Arizona federal judge has formally reprimanded a lawyer who admitted to filing four briefs that contained errors including false quotes and a faulty case summary generated with artificial intelligence amid an employment discrimination suit, noting the lawyer previously faced sanctions on two separate occasions for violating court rules.

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House Committee Wants DOL IG To Widen Info-Sharing Probe

By Benjamin Morse

Top House Education and Workforce Committee Republicans urged the U.S. Department of Labor's watchdog Wednesday to expand its review of information-sharing arrangements with outside groups, asking whether three additional agencies improperly disclosed confidential investigative material during the Biden administration.

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