Rebecca Day

California’s $93 million settlement with Google resolves a multiyear investigation into the tech company’s location-privacy practices, said Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) in a Thursday news release. The California Department of Justice determined Google was ” deceiving users by collecting, storing, and using their location data for consumer profiling and advertising purposes without informed consent,” Bonta said.

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. refreshed his free speech complaint against YouTube and Google to wrap in the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s Sept. 8 comments in the pending Missouri v. Biden First Amendment case, said his Tuesday amended complaint (docket 3:23-cv-03880) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

The U.S. Panel on Multidistrict Litigation should deny plaintiff Bruce Bailey’s motion for centralization and transfer of related actions in MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, said an interested party response Tuesday (docket 3083), opposing Bailey’s push for centralization in U.S. District Court for Minnesota.

South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, D-N.Y., deprived political rival Gregg Marcel Dixon of his First Amendment rights by blocking and muting him from his social media accounts on Twitter, said Dixon’s complaint (docket 9:23-cv-04500) filed pro se Thursday in U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Beaufort. Dixon's website refers to him as a candidate for the 6th Congressional District of South Carolina, a post Clyburn has held since 1993.

The harm caused by imposition of state taxation on the federal Lifeline program “would be enormous,” said former FCC Commissioners Robert McDowell and Mignon Clyburn in an amicus brief Monday (docket 101873-8) in Washington Supreme Court in support of appellant Assurance Wireless. Assurance petitioned for review of a lower court ruling rejecting its argument that the carrier’s Lifeline services didn’t involve a retail sale.

Plaintiffs Gayle Jentz, Andre Lopez, Gwendolyn Smuda, Steven Checchia and Robin Anderson and defendant Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) oppose plaintiff Bruce Bailey’s July motion for transfer and centralization of cases related to MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation to the district of Minnesota, said their Friday response (docket 3083) before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML).

Plaintiff Bruce Bailey anticipates the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will rule “sometime in October” on his motion to transfer all related actions involving the Progress Software Corp. (PSC) May data breach to U.S. District Court for Minnesota, said his Wednesday status report (docket 3083) before the JPML. Bailey’s July motion to transfer said PSC bears responsibility for a late May data breach in which data of over 15 million people was stolen as part of a security breach by Russian ransomware group CL0P.

The FTC finalized an order with 1Health.io that settles allegations the genetic testing firm left consumers’ sensitive genetic and health data unsecured, deceived customers’ about their ability to get data deleted and changed its privacy policy “retroactively without adequately notifying consumers and obtaining their consent,” said the FTC in a Thursday news release.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco denied Meta’s motion to dismiss claims it violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and of breach of contract and unjust enrichment, and he granted the motion with leave to amend other claims in the John Doe v. Meta privacy class action, said his Thursday order (docket 3:22-cv-03580).

Google moved the court Thursday to compel third-party Havas Media Group to comply with its two "identical subpoenas" to provide documents for antitrust lawsuits about its digital advertising business, said the filing (docket 3:23-mc-03007) in U.S. District Court for Central Illinois in Springfield. The ad agency doesn't consent to the motion, which Google issued as part of its effort to defend against “multiple antitrust lawsuits,” Google said.