A Meta safety executive admitted Monday to a Tennessee jury that she cannot "rule out" that addiction may occur with Instagram but said she believes that so far there is no evidence to identify anything beyond "problematic use."
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Cybersecurity & Privacy
TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

TOP NEWS

Meta Exec Can't 'Rule Out' Addiction But Doubts It, Jury Told

By Cara Salvatore

A Meta safety executive admitted Monday to a Tennessee jury that she cannot "rule out" that addiction may occur with Instagram but said she believes that so far there is no evidence to identify anything beyond "problematic use."

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Pornhub To Pay $120M To End Child Abuse Content Cases

By Dorothy Atkins

The companies behind adult entertainment website Pornhub have agreed to make extensive policy changes and pay $120 million to end certified class claims in California and Alabama by child sex trafficking and sexual abuse material survivors who allege the website profited from crimes committed against them.

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Meta Loses 'Hail Mary' Sanctions Bid On Eve Of AGs' Trial

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge Sunday denied Meta's request for spoliation sanctions against state attorneys general that would've barred a Meta whistleblower from testifying in the upcoming high-stakes social media addiction bellwether trial, ruling that Meta's request was an "obvious" "Hail Mary attempt to eliminate a strong witness" before trial.

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Google To Pay $10M For Spirit Airlines Data To Help AI Models

By Alex Wittenberg

Technology giant Google LLC has won an auction for Spirit Airlines' emails, chats, spreadsheets and other data, offering $10 million for anonymized information it will use to improve its large language models and other products, according to a notice filed Friday in New York bankruptcy court.

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Law Firm's Challenge To 2021 Statute Falls Short, Judge Says

By Kelcey Caulder

A Georgia federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by an attorney and his firm alleging a 2021 law designed to combat money laundering could force the attorney to violate attorney-client privilege, finding the plaintiffs had failed to allege any concrete injury that would empower them to pursue the case. 

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Experts See Looming Legal Disputes Over FCC Party Balance

By Christopher Cole

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to ditch case law shielding independent federal agency members from presidential removal is unlikely to resolve ongoing controversy over White House control of the Federal Communications Commission, experts said Monday.

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RISING STARS

Rising Star: Eimer Stahl's Collin Vierra

By Adrian Cruz

Eimer Stahl LLP's Collin Vierra served as discovery counsel for Tennessee in its landmark suit against social media giant Meta Platforms Inc. over Instagram's alleged harmful effects on youth, earning him a spot among the cybersecurity and privacy lawyers under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.

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ENFORCEMENT

Justices Won't Reconsider Verizon's $47M FCC Fine

By Nadia Dreid

The U.S. Supreme Court is not interested in reconsidering how it worded its June opinion upholding the Federal Communications Commission's authority to issue monetary penalties, despite Verizon arguing that the ruling left it between a rock and a hard place concerning the $47 million fine it already paid.

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Calif. AG Pans Bid To Pause Social Media Algorithm Limits

By Craig Clough

The California attorney general urged a federal judge to deny requests from TikTok, Meta and Google to block enforcement of a state law barring them from using algorithms to deliver feeds to children, saying the court already denied a preliminary injunction and should not grant one pending the companies' appeal.

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LITIGATION

Standing Flaw Sinks Chrysler Website Tracking Row, For Now

By Allison Grande

A California federal judge has tossed, with leave to amend, a proposed class action accusing automaker FCA of illegally divulging Chrysler website visitors' personal information to a data broker, finding that the plaintiff had failed to establish the type of concrete injury necessary to sustain her wiretap and privacy claims.

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2nd Circ. Says Public Can Film Police And Their Stations

By Brian Steele

The Second Circuit said Monday it has joined "a growing chorus of our sister circuits" in finding a constitutional right to record law enforcement activity in public, as well as police buildings, but still turned away a self-described First Amendment auditor's lawsuit over his arrest while filming the exterior of a Connecticut police station.

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Apple Hit With Derivative Suit Over AI Copyright Infringement

By Hailey Konnath

Apple executives and directors are facing a stockholder derivative action claiming they've been knowingly using copyrighted materials to develop Apple's artificial intelligence services — an unlawful business strategy they knew could lead to litigation from copyright holders, the plaintiff told a California federal court.

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JPMorgan Loses State Trade Secret Claims In Data Suit

By Ivan Moreno

JPMorgan Chase Bank cannot pursue state law trade secret claims against a data analytics company over the alleged misuse of credit card data supplied for regulatory purposes, with a Delaware federal judge ruling Monday that the bank still hasn't tied that conduct to Delaware or Ohio.

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Brief

Judge Stays Ex-Defense Contractor Execs' Whistleblower Suit

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado federal magistrate judge granted on Monday a defense contractor's bid to stay two former executives' case against it that claimed the contractor fired them for reporting a $1.9 million fraud scheme on a classified government contract.

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PEOPLE

Debevoise Hires 2 Former Davis Polk Attorneys For AI Practice

By Matt Perez

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP announced on Monday the hiring of two former Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP lawyers as counsel focused on artificial intelligence in New York and Washington, D.C.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

7th Circ. Ruling May Reduce Litigation Risk For Text Marketers

The recent Seventh Circuit holding in Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services that unwanted marketing text messages are not telephone calls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act may strengthen companies' responses to presuit demand letters and early-stage litigation claims premised on do-not-call text theories, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

Law Firms See Revenue, Demand Grow In First Half Of 2026

By Anna Sanders

Despite rising expenses driven by artificial intelligence and return to office mandates, the legal industry is performing well in 2026, with U.S. law firms recording a double-digit jump in revenue and strong growth in demand so far this year, according to new survey results from Citi Global Wealth at Work's Law Firm Group.

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Morgan & Morgan Sues Fla. Bar Over Celebrity Ad Ban

By Carolina Bolado

Personal injury giant Morgan & Morgan PA has sued the Florida Bar, claiming a bar rule that bans any use of a celebrity's voice or image in lawyer advertising violates the First Amendment.

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3 NY Injury Firms Get Uber's RICO Suit Tossed

By Lauren Berg

A New York federal judge threw out Uber Technologies Inc.'s lawsuit accusing three personal injury law firms of conspiring with physicians and exploiting passengers to pursue fake or exaggerated injury claims in order to strongarm settlement payouts from the ride-hailing giant.

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Nussbaum-Linked Firms' Ch. 11s Tossed For Bad Faith

By Ben Zigterman

A New York bankruptcy judge has dismissed the Chapter 11 cases of two commercial real estate law firms headed by Mark J. Nussbaum, finding their petitions were filed in bad faith and that the cases instead belonged in an assignment for the benefit of creditors process in New York state court.

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Chattah Can't Serve As Acting Nevada US Atty, 9th Circ. Says

By Emma Cueto

The Ninth Circuit on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that Nevada's top prosecutor was not put in place lawfully and was barred from overseeing the criminal cases giving rise to the appeal, the latest state where courts have shut down attempts by the Trump administration to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.

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Clifford Chance Pushes To Send Clawback Suit To Arbitration

By Ryan Boysen

Clifford Chance LLP wants a high-profile partner pay dispute sent to arbitration, accusing two ex-partners who claim they're facing a $6 million clawback demand of "gamesmanship" by filing suit in New York federal court.

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NYCBA Cautions Against Recording Nonclient Calls

By Emily Sawicki

New York City attorneys who have been granted permission may ethically use artificial intelligence to record, transcribe and summarize conversations with nonclients, according to the latest ethics guidance by the New York City Bar Association Monday, which added that just because they can doesn't mean they should.

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LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

Anderson Kill

Ashurst Perkins

Cleary Gottlieb

Clifford Chance

Cooley LLP

Covington & Burling

Davis Polk

Debevoise & Plimpton

Duane Morris

Eimer Stahl

Gibson Dunn

Gupta Wessler

Holland & Knight

Jenner & Block

Kellogg Hansen

Klein Thomas

Kobre & Kim

Lavelle Law Firm

Law Offices of Ruth I. Major

Littler Mendelson

Mintz Levin

MoloLamken

Morgan & Morgan PA

Morgan Lewis

Morris Nichols

Nussbaum Lowinger

O'Melveny & Myers

Pollock Cohen

Proskauer Rose

Quinn Emanuel

Selendy Gay

Sidley Austin

Simon & Simon PC

Spencer Fane

Spizzirri Law

Susman Godfrey

Tauler Smith

Wagstaff & Cartmell

Wilkinson Stekloff

Wingate Russotti

Wollmuth Maher

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

AT&T Inc.

Adobe Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

American Civil Liberties Union

Apple Inc.

Argus Information & Advisory Services LLC

AtriCure, Inc.

Chevron Corp.

Clearview AI

FCA US LLC

FedEx Corp.

Fordham University

George Washington University

Google LLC

Instagram Inc.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JetBlue Airways Corp.

LiveRamp

McKesson Corp.

Meta Platforms Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

New York City Bar Association

Nike Inc.

OpenAI OpCo LLC

Roku Inc.

Spirit Airlines Inc.

Stanford University

T-Mobile US Inc.

The Florida Bar

The Western Union Co.

TikTok Inc.

TransUnion LLC

Uber Technologies Inc.

Verisk Analytics Inc.

Verizon Communications Inc.

YouTube Inc.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

California Attorney General's Office

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Reserve System

Federal Trade Commission

Florida Supreme Court

National Reconnaissance Office

Tennessee Attorney General's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada

U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of the Treasury

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut

U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Supreme Court

United States District Court for the District of Colorado

United States District Court for the District of Nevada

United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama