Tag: lawsuits and claims

States sue Instagram-parent Meta over ‘addictive’ features and youth mental health harms
Technology

States sue Instagram-parent Meta over ‘addictive’ features and youth mental health harms

CNN  —  Dozens of states sued Instagram-parent Meta on Tuesday, accusing the social media giant of harming young users’ mental health through allegedly addictive features such as infinite news feeds and frequent notifications that demand users’ constant attention. In a federal lawsuit filed in California by 33 attorneys general, the states allege that Meta’s products have harmed minors and contributed to a mental health crisis in the United States. “Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem,” said Letitia James, the attorney general for New York, one of the ...
Genesis and Gemini face civil suit alleging $1 billion fraud
Technology

Genesis and Gemini face civil suit alleging $1 billion fraud

CNN  —  The fallout from the colossal implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto business is still rippling through the digital asset industry nearly a year later. On Thursday, New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against three digital asset firms that were caught up in the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s empire last fall — Gemini Trust, Genesis Global Capital and Digital Currency Group, parent company of Genesis. The lawsuit accused the companies of lying to investors and covering up more than $1 billion in losses. The AG’s office said that an investigation found Gemini, the crypto firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, deceived investors about significant risks associated with a lending ser...
Five takeaways from the FTC’s 172-page antitrust lawsuit against Amazon
Technology

Five takeaways from the FTC’s 172-page antitrust lawsuit against Amazon

Washington CNN  —  An antitrust lawsuit from 17 states and the Federal Trade Commission this week against Amazon represents the US government’s biggest regulatory challenge yet against the e-commerce juggernaut. The landmark case targets Amazon’s retail platform, alleging that it’s harmed shoppers and sellers alike on a massive scale. Through an alleged “self-reinforcing cycle of dominance and harm,” the plaintiffs claim, Amazon has run an illegal monopoly in ways that are “paying off for Amazon, but at great cost to tens of millions of American households and hundreds of thousands of sellers.” In response, Amazon has argued the case is “wrong on the facts and the law” and warne...
Yelp sues Texas to defend its labeling of crisis pregnancy centers
Technology

Yelp sues Texas to defend its labeling of crisis pregnancy centers

Washington CNN  —  Yelp is suing Texas to ensure it can continue to tell users that crisis pregnancy centers listed on its site do not provide abortions or abortion referrals, opening a new front in the fight between states and the tech industry over abortion restrictions. In a complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, Yelp said it is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton preemptively, to head off a lawsuit it anticipates from his office as soon as Friday that may seek to bar Yelp from applying its labels to crisis pregnancy centers. Yelp said it currently applies the following label to crisis pregnancy center listings: “This is a Crisis Pregnancy Center. Crisis Pregnancy Centers do ...
The US government and 17 states sues Amazon in landmark monopoly case
Technology

The US government and 17 states sues Amazon in landmark monopoly case

CNN  —  The US government and 17 states are suing Amazon in a landmark monopoly case reflecting years of allegations that the e-commerce giant abused its economic dominance and harmed fair competition. The groundbreaking lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and 17 attorneys general marks the government’s sharpest attack yet against Amazon, a company that started off selling books on the internet but has since become known as “the everything store,” expanding into selling a vast range of consumer products, creating a globe-spanning logistics network and becoming a powerhouse in other technologies such as cloud computing. The 172-page complaint alleges Amazon unfairly promotes its own platform a...
George R. R. Martin, Jodi Picoult and other famous writers join Authors Guild in class action lawsuit against OpenAI
Technology

George R. R. Martin, Jodi Picoult and other famous writers join Authors Guild in class action lawsuit against OpenAI

New York CNN  —  A group of famous fiction writers joined the Authors Guild in filing a class action suit against OpenAI on Wednesday, alleging the company’s technology is illegally using their copyrighted work. The complaint claims that OpenAI, the company behind viral chatbot ChatGPT, is copying famous works in acts of “flagrant and harmful” copyright infringement and feeding manuscripts into algorithms to help train systems on how to create more human-like text responses. George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen are among the 17 prominent authors who joined the suit led by the Authors Guild, a professional organization that protects writers’ rights. Filed in the Souther...
Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization
Technology

Landmark Google trial opens with sweeping DOJ accusations of illegal monopolization

CNN  —  US prosecutors opened a landmark antitrust trial against Google on Tuesday with sweeping allegations that for years the company intentionally stifled competition challenging its massive search engine, accusing the tech giant of spending billions to operate an illegal monopoly that has harmed every computer and mobile device user in the United States. In opening remarks before a federal judge in Washington, lawyers for the Justice Department alleged that Google’s negotiation of exclusive contracts with wireless carriers and phone makers helped cement its dominant position in violation of US antitrust law. The Google case has been described as one of the largest US antitrust trials since the fe...
Google stands trial against US government officials in antitrust lawsuit over the company’s accused search monopoly
Technology

Google stands trial against US government officials in antitrust lawsuit over the company’s accused search monopoly

CNN  —  Google will face off in court Tuesday against government officials who have accused the company of antitrust violations in its massive search business, kicking off a long-anticipated legal showdown that could reshape one of the internet’s most dominant platforms. The trial beginning this week in Washington before a federal judge marks the culmination of two ongoing lawsuits against Google that started during the Trump administration. Legal experts describe the actions as the country’s biggest monopolization case since the US government took on Microsoft in the 1990s. In separate complaints, the Justice Department and dozens of states accused Google in 2020 of abusing its dominance in onli...
Elon Musk’s X Corp. sues California AG over content moderation law
Technology

Elon Musk’s X Corp. sues California AG over content moderation law

New York CNN  —  Elon Musk’s X Corp., the parent company of the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Friday sued California’s attorney general over the state’s new content moderation law. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bill AB 587 into law last September. The law requires social media companies to post their terms of service online and submit a semiannual report to the state attorney general outlining their content moderation policies and practices. Platforms must, among other things, disclose how their automated content moderation systems work, how they define controversial content categories such as “hate speech” and “disinformation,” and the number of pieces of content flagged or removed in such catego...
US judge set to decertify Google Play class action
Technology

US judge set to decertify Google Play class action

CNN  —  A US judge plans to free Google from having to defend against a class action by 21 million consumers who claimed it violated federal antitrust law by overcharging them in its Google Play app store. Monday’s decision by US District Judge James Donato in San Francisco could significantly reduce damages that Google, a unit of Alphabet, might owe over the distribution of Android mobile applications. Consumers claimed they would have paid less for apps and enjoyed expanded choice but for Google’s alleged monopoly. Google has denied wrongdoing. Donato said his Nov. 2022 class certification order should be thrown out because his decision, also announced Monday, not to let an economist t...