Meta Fights 'Monster' Proposed $1.1B CIPA Judgment

By Rae Ann Varona

Meta has urged a California federal judge not to grant a partial final judgment of more than $1.1 billion against it for unlawfully obtaining sensitive data from users of the menstrual tracking app Flo, saying the judgment it criticized as "Frankenstein's monster" violates its due process rights.

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23andMe Beats Calif.'s Bankruptcy Sale Privacy Challenge

By Dorothy Atkins

A Missouri federal judge on Tuesday denied California's bid to undo the $305 million bankruptcy sale of 23andMe over concerns that the sale sidestepped state consumer data protections, ruling that the state lacks standing to challenge the sale and that the court's "good-faith" findings aren't clearly erroneous.  

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Parler Ex-CEO Makes Final Trial Pitch For $100M Damages

By Cara Salvatore

The former CEO of social media site Parler made his final argument Wednesday that he was wrongly stripped of a stake worth up to $100 million, with his lawyer telling a Nevada jury a valuation finding the entire company worth $10.81 was "bunk."

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9th Circ. Judges Doubt X's Claims Against Anti-Hate Group

By Dorothy Atkins

Ninth Circuit judges appeared skeptical Wednesday of X Corp.'s bid to revive claims against two nonprofits for scraping tweets to study online hate speech, with one judge questioning X's contract damages claim and another doubting that the nonprofits could be held liable for publishing true information.

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Senate Panel Seeks To Hold AI Giants Liable For Rogue Hacks

By Allison Grande

Several U.S. senators made a bipartisan push Wednesday to impose both civil and criminal liability on the makers and users of advanced artificial intelligence models for the misuse of these systems, arguing that such a move would give these companies more incentive to combat cyberattacks carried out by rogue AI agents and other potential harms. 

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Paramount Can't Ax Most Claims In Pluto TV Privacy Action

By Craig Clough

A California federal judge Tuesday allowed seven claims to proceed in an amended action alleging Paramount Skydance Corp. unlawfully disclosed the personally identifiable information of children who streamed content on its Pluto TV service, finding the parents sufficiently alleged privacy injuries after an earlier dismissal.

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FCC Opens 2 Spectrum Bands For Satellite Services

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday opened two portions of spectrum totaling more than 1,000 megahertz to expand satellite broadband as part of a long-range plan to free up the airwaves for space-based activities.

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FCC OKs Cable Biz Waiver To Fix Banned Routers

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission has come through with another waiver that will allow certain companies to make changes to foreign-made routers that the agency has banned from being imported, in the hopes of avoiding the supply chain shortages that the ban created.

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Insurer Must Cover Part Of Consulting Firm's $7.6M DOJ Deal

By Hope Patti

A CNA insurer was required to defend a consulting firm against a False Claims Act suit claiming it allowed New Yorkers' personal information to be compromised while operating a pandemic-era rental assistance portal, and must cover a portion of the firm's $7.6 million settlement, a Virginia federal court ruled.

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Google Looks To Toss 'Implausible' Amended AI Spying Action

By Taylor Bowie

Google is seeking to permanently end the third iteration of a proposed action alleging its "Smart Features" unlawfully give Gemini AI access to users' private correspondence, asserting Google's privacy policy allows it to automatically collect such communication data.

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7th Circ. Backs Truckers In Union Pacific BIPA Suit

By Craig Clough

A Seventh Circuit panel on Wednesday affirmed that fingerprint scans at Union Pacific's Illinois facilities violated a state privacy law, rejecting the company's stance that a government contractor exception applies anytime the contract is active.

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Ohio Parents Say Netflix Hooks Kids For Ad Data

By Jonathan Capriel

Netflix falsely marketed itself as a "kid-friendly" streaming alternative to Big Tech platforms while secretly building an addictive surveillance machine around children, Ohio parents have claimed in a proposed class action, which is at least the third lawsuit accusing the company of harvesting families' personal data.

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Email Feud Tied To Brothers' Cannabis Venture Heads To Trial

By Susan Smiley

A contentious legal battle between a pair of siblings who once co-owned cannabis businesses is heading to trial, a Michigan federal judge said Wednesday, ruling that there are genuine questions about one brother's downloading of the other's emails that require a jury trial to resolve.

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Mid-Atlantic Law Firm Hit With Data Breach Class Action

By Andrea Keckley

A Virginia woman filed a proposed class action on Tuesday accusing Midkiff Muncie & Ross PC of failing to protect her personal information from a cyberattack that the mid-Atlantic firm says it discovered in December.

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DraftKings Uses AI To Exploit Losing Bettors, Suit Alleges

By Lauren Berg

DraftKings weaponizes artificial intelligence to identify vulnerable gamblers who tend to lose and then deploys promotions enticing those gamblers to place more bets to increase the house's revenue, according to a proposed class action filed Wednesday in Massachusetts federal court.

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Verano, Dispensary Failed To Protect Patient Info, Suit Says

By Mike Curley

An Illinois woman is alleging that nationwide cannabis operator Verano Holdings Corp. and a St. Charles dispensary failed to properly protect patient data, allowing 2.4 million lines of database information to be put on the internet.

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Tech Co. Sensata Can't Duck Data Breach Class Action

By Carolyn Muyskens

Sensata Technologies Inc. must face a lawsuit over a cybersecurity breach, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled Wednesday, finding that the industrial sensor technology company's former employees adequately pled that the ransomware attack has exposed them to a risk of identity theft.

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Benefits Firm Can't Knock Out Data Breach Suit

By David Aaro

A Georgia federal court on Wednesday narrowed, but refused to dismiss, a proposed class action accusing a human resources services firm of failing to safeguard customer information ahead of a 2024 data breach.

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AI Meeting Recaps Pose New Discovery And Privilege Risks

The New York City Bar Association’s recent ethics opinion, cautioning attorneys not to record nonclient conversations with artificial intelligence tools, reflects an emerging view that AI meeting recaps are now a distinct business record category, meaning counsel should set meeting-level controls and apply framework-level updates, says William Wright at Faegre Drinker.

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The Law360 Pulse Prestige Leaders: A Look At The Top Firms

Today's most prestigious firms attract top talent and marquee clients while posting record profits. Here's a look at the top 10 firms in this year's Law360 Pulse Prestige Leaders, a ranking of the firms that stand out for their prominence, power and distinction.

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DOJ Accuses Judges Of Ethics Violations With Press Remarks

By Jack Karp

Several Minnesota federal judges ran afoul of their ethical obligations when they commented on President Donald Trump's immigration policies in a recent news article, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a judicial misconduct complaint filed Wednesday.

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Federal Bar Discussion Looks At Courts' Role In Regulating AI

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Federal Bar Association discussion Wednesday in California about AI and how it will be regulated in the United States prompted the Northern District's new chief judge to ask whether Congress' "inability to pass laws" will leave it to the courts "to figure out how we're going to do this."

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DOJ Atty Picked For Judgeship Probed On Fulton County Raid

By Courtney Bublé

A top U.S. Department of Justice official tapped for a federal judgeship faced questions from Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday about the department's investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, over Trump's allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.

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Texas AG Says ABA Stifling Law School Competition

By Spencer Brewer

The Texas Attorney General announced an investigation into the American Bar Association relating to alleged anticompetitive conduct in the association's accreditation of law schools, claiming Wednesday that the ABA "weaponized its accreditation authority" to push "unconstitutional racial and gender preference requirements."

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Sen. Blackburn Sues Smith For Seizing Phone Records

By James Boyle

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn alleges in a federal complaint filed Wednesday that Jack Smith illegally subpoenaed her phone records as part of an investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

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3rd Circ. Calls Westlaw AI Fight 'Ordinary Copyright Case'

By Ivan Moreno

The Third Circuit said the first appellate fight over artificial intelligence training and fair use ultimately came down to an "ordinary copyright case," affirming that Ross Intelligence infringed Thomson Reuters' Westlaw headnotes when it used them to train a competing legal research platform.

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Blank Rome Seeks Time To Exit LIV Golf's Fla. Office

By Ben Zigterman

Blank Rome LLP on Wednesday filed a limited objection to LIV Golf's motion to reject its sublease at an office building in West Palm Beach, Florida, saying it didn't receive any advance notice and would like until the end of October to transition to a new office.

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Roundup

Defamation Litigation Roundup: Candace Owens, Firm DQ

By Theresa Schliep

In this month's review of defamation fights, Law360 highlights a new suit over right-wing media personality Candace Owens and her conspiracy theories about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, as well as Quinn Emanuel's disqualification from a suit against a former client.

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Tort Report: Uber Owes $40M In Abandoned Rider Death Case

By Y. Peter Kang

A $40 million arbitration award in a case over an Uber incident and looming litigation against the federal government over a highly publicized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on a Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia lead Law360's Tort Report, which compiles recent personal injury and medical malpractice news that may have flown under the radar.

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Roundup

Hub Hires: Mintz, Foley Hoag, Barclay Damon

By Chris Villani

Boston saw several significant moves across its legal landscape as the summer wound down, with Foley Hoag adding an experienced debt finance attorney from Goodwin Procter, a boutique white collar firm snagging a longtime federal prosecutor, and Mintz getting new leadership for the first time in nearly two decades.

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