The U.S. District Court for Northern California ruled on Friday that social media platform X's copyright case against a data-scraping company will continue, and it allowed some but not all of data scraper Bright Data's counterclaims to continue as well. "The scraper states plausible claims for relief," the court said.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) said the decision in the recent NetChoice, LLC v. Griffin case does not apply to her state's current case against the trade association about a kids online safety law, in a letter to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday. Earlier this month, trade association NetChoice suggested the 5th Circuit follow the ruling in Griffin and enjoin the Mississippi law, which is at the heart of NetChoice v. Fitch.
The Privacy Act includes cybersecurity provisions that can be used to hold the Department of Government Efficiency liable for data abuse, Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Mario Trujillo said Thursday.
The University of California Student Association dismissed its case against the Department of Education and Education Secretary Linda McMahon concerning the Department of Government Efficiency's access to sensitive information Wednesday. McMahon had filed a motion to dismiss the case April 8 over lack of standing and the association's inability to show irreparable harm (see 2504080051). The student association had sued the Education Department in February in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for its alleged unlawful and continuous disclosure of sensitive information to DOGE (see 2502100074).
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) issued a subpoena to Roblox Wednesday for information about how the online game markets to children, moderates chat rooms and sets age-verification requirements, as well as how it collects and processes data of child users.
Dozens of states urged a federal court to appoint a consumer privacy ombudsman to oversee data protection issues in 23andMe’s bankruptcy sale (see 2504100046). Florida, New York, California and Utah were among states seeking an ombudsman.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) filed a motion to dismiss a case about DOGE's allegedly illegal seizure of personnel records and payment system data, claiming that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) lacked standing to sue, among other issues.
Bright Data said it has already provided the information social media platform X is asking the court to order it to submit. In letters to Judge William Alsup, the data scrapping firm responded Tuesday to X's claims that it is attempting to stall the case and withhold its activity logs (see 2504140051).
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) told a court Monday that the decision in NetChoice, LLC v. Griffin demonstrates the weakness of NetChoice's argument for a preliminary injunction against a law that requires age verification before accessing social media accounts. NetChoice urged the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee on April 1 to use the Griffin ruling (see 2504010044), to enjoin the law (see 2504020033).
U.S. Supreme Court precedent affirms the legitimacy of multimember commissions like the FTC, so President Donald Trump’s firing of two Democratic commissioners should be reversed, congressional Democrats wrote in an amicus brief Monday (see 2504110049).