Ninth Circuit Reinstates Decade-Old Lawsuit Against Facebook For Tracking Logged-Out Users–In re Facebook Internet Tracking
Users sued Facebook in 2012 alleging it improperly tracked users’ browsing while they were logged out of Facebook. Facebook apparently included code in its “like” button on third party websites that would inform Facebook when the user visited the website…
Instagram’s TOS Authorizes Third-Party Embedding of Photos–Sinclair v. Mashable
Sinclair is a professional photographer. Like many photographers, she posts photos to Instagram. Mashable wished to use a photo of Sinclair’s and asked for a license. Sinclair declined. Using Instagram’s API, Mashable then embedded the photo into its story. Sinclair…
Huuuge Mistake in Contract Formation
This is a lawsuit alleging that Huuuge’s gaming app violates Washington’s gambling statute. The particular ruling focuses on whether the app can force users to arbitrate their claims. The district court (Judge Leighton, who is hearing a slew of these…
Maryland Disclosure Requirements for Online Political Ads Violates the First Amendment–Washington Post v. McManus
In 2018, Maryland passed the “Online Electioneering Transparency and Accountability Act”. The act broadened the reach of Maryland’s political advertising rules to cover online advertisements and “online platforms”. It required publishers to publish somewhere on their sites the following information…
Court Partially Enforces Amazon’s Non-Compete Against Employee Who Joined Google–Amazon v. Moyer
Moyer was employed at Amazon as its Director of Sales for AWS’ “global financial services” and signed a non-compete. He left Amazon and joined Google as its VP of “Healthcare, Google Cloud”. Amazon sought to enforce the non-compete lawsuit in…
Amazon Can’t Force Arbitration of Minors’ Privacy Claims Based on Alexa Recordings–BF v. Amazon
This lawsuit alleges that Alexa improperly stores the voiceprints of minor users. The trial court declines to order arbitration. (It’s the recommendation of a magistrate, so it will go to the district judge for adoption or modification of the order.)…
Ninth Circuit Declines to Shelve Lawsuit Alleging Facebook Violated Illinois Biometric Privacy Statute
Illinois enacted a biometric privacy statute which restricted the collection of biometric identifiers. Plaintiffs, Illinois residents and Facebook users, alleged that Facebook violated this statute by collecting, storing, and processing their face-scans without their consent and without establishing the requisite…
Ninth Circuit Says LinkedIn Wrongly Blocked HiQ’s Scraping Efforts
Fans of scraping cases may rejoice. The Ninth Circuit issued its long-awaited opinion in the hiQ v. LinkedIn case (it was argued in March 2018, so the opinion took about 18 months). It rules in favor of hiQ. hiQ was…
Lessons from Bumble’s Choice of Law Clause–King v. Bumble
This is a lawsuit against the dating app “Bumble” challenging Bumble’s refund and renewal practices. Plaintiffs allege Bumble violated two California statues: (1) the Dating Service Law, and (2) the Automatic Renewal Law. The first requires dating services to give…
Pres. Trump Violates the Constitution By Blocking @RealDonaldTrump Followers–Knight First Amendment v. Trump
In the Knight Foundation’s First Amendment lawsuit against President Trump for blocking Twitter users, the Second Circuit says that his blocking of users based on their viewpoints violates the First Amendment. This is a resounding loss for the President. (Our…