Tag Archives: Company Legal & Law Matters

The Morning After: Meta is reportedly offering millions to get Hollywood voices into its AI projects

Posted on by

According to Bloomberg and The New York Times, Meta is in talks with the likes of Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina and Dame Judi Dench, among others, for its AI projects. The company apparently intends to incorporate their voices into a conversational generative AI-slash-digital assistant called MetaAI, which is rumored to be like Siri and Google Assistant, which could live within Facebook, Meta hardware, and all the other parts of the multimillion-dollar social network company.

The actors’ representatives are still negotiating for stricter limits, though SAG-AFTRA has reportedly agreed on terms with Meta. SAG-AFTRA, if you recall, fought for provisions to protect actors from the threat of job loss due to AI.

Didn’t Meta already do something like this? Yes. During its Connect event last year, the company also introduced a chatbot platform with 28 “characters” voiced by celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Dwyane Wade and Kendall Jenner. However, those celebrity chatbots’ pages have since disappeared, and The Information reports that Meta has just quietly scrapped that project.

This appears to be more central to Meta’s AI ambitions.

— Mat Smith

What to expect from Google’s Pixel 2024 event

Apple apologizes for another ad that missed the mark

OpenAI is looking into text watermarking for ChatGPT, which could expose cheating students

Nintendo profits fall 55 percent as people save their cash for the Switch 2

Say goodbye to Boomerang, the streaming service dedicated to classic cartoons

​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

Payments relating to a class action lawsuit filed in 2018 over Apple’s butterfly MacBook keyboards have reportedly begun. The settlement website now states that payments for approved claims will go out in August, and claimants will receive checks. For some, it could mean a check of up to $395.

After Apple introduced the butterfly keyboard in 2015, complaints arose over “sticky” and unresponsive keys. A lawsuit filed in 2018 accused Apple of knowing its keyboards had problems and concealing this from consumers. While Apple denied the lawsuit’s allegations of defective keyboards, it agreed to pay $50 million as part of a settlement. It also started phasing out the keyboard design in 2019.

Continue reading.

A guest who appeared on a podcast to boast about a hack-and-payback scheme involving his victims’ social media accounts is now facing the wrath of the FBI. It received a tip about Qibaa’s alleged extortion scheme on April 1, pointing to his appearance on the No Jumper podcast. Qibaa outlined a financial scheme using over 200 victims’ social media accounts, in which he would lock them out of their pages and charge them to regain access. He added he made about $600,000 a month.

Continue reading.

TMA
Game Informer

Game Informer announced its parent company, GameStop, is shutting the magazine after 33 years in the business. The entire website and its archives are gone, redirecting to the magazine’s final statement of thanks to its readers. The publication’s content director, Kyle Hilliard, said on X the bad news about the mass staff layoffs landed right when they were in the middle of creating an issue. Game Informer launched in August 1991 with Sonic the Hedgehog sprinting across its cover.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-meta-is-reportedly-offering-millions-to-get-hollywood-voices-into-its-ai-projects-111549125.html?src=rss

Apple has finally started sending out payments from its butterfly keyboard settlement

Posted on by

Payments relating to a class action lawsuit filed in 2018 over Apple’s butterfly MacBook keyboards have reportedly begun to arrive. The settlement website now states that payments for approved claims will go out in August — and sure enough, 9to5Mac’s Michael Burkhardt reports that he received two settlement checks in the mail on Saturday. Just how much eligible MacBook owners will get varies depending on the extent of the repairs their devices needed. But for some, it could mean a check (or multiple) of up to $395.

After Apple introduced the butterfly keyboard in 2015, complaints arose over “sticky” and unresponsive keys, susceptibility to debris and other major issues. The company ultimately started phasing out the design in 2019. The lawsuit filed in 2018 accused Apple of knowing that its keyboards had problems and concealing this from consumers. While Apple denied the lawsuit’s allegations of defective keyboards and did not admit to any wrongdoing, it agreed to pay $50 million as part of a settlement.

Per the settlement website, people who got two or more topcase replacements within four years of purchasing one of the affected MacBooks are expected to get between $300-$395. MacBook owners who got just one topcase replacement could get up to $125. Claimants who only needed keycap replacements will get a maximum of $50. Of course, to receive a payment, you’d need to have filed any claims by the deadlines outlined in the settlement. And, when the settlement was first reached in 2022, Reuters reported that it will only apply to customers who bought the affected laptops in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Washington. You can find the full details in the case’s FAQ.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-has-finally-started-sending-out-payments-from-its-butterfly-keyboard-settlement-210754935.html?src=rss

The Justice Department sues TikTok for breaking child privacy laws

Posted on by

The US Department of Justice is suing TikTok for violating a child privacy law and violating a 2019 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission for previous privacy violations. The lawsuit stems from an earlier investigation into the company by the Federal Trade Commission, which referred its privacy case to the DoJ earlier this year.

The FTC had been looking into whether TikTok had violated the terms of an earlier privacy settlement with Musical.ly, which was acquired by ByteDance prior to the launch of TikTok. According to the FTC, the investigation found that TikTok had “flagrantly” violated both the 2019 settlement and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

In a statement, the Justice Department also cited TikTok’s collection of personal information about children on its platform and its failure to comply with the requests for the information to be deleted.

From 2019 to the present, TikTok knowingly permitted children to create regular TikTok accounts and to create, view, and share short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the regular TikTok platform. The defendants collected and retained a wide variety of personal information from these children without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents. Even for accounts that were created in “Kids Mode” (a pared-back version of TikTok intended for children under 13), the defendants unlawfully collected and retained children’s email addresses and other types of personal information. Further, when parents discovered their children’s accounts and asked the defendants to delete the accounts and information in them, the defendants frequently failed to honor those requests. The defendants also had deficient and ineffectual internal policies and processes for identifying and deleting TikTok accounts created by children.

In a statement, TikTok said it took issue with the allegations, saying it had previously addressed some of the conduct described by the Justice Department. “We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,” the company said. “We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform. To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”

The lawsuit comes at a particularly inconvenient time for TikTok, which is set to face off with the Justice Department in federal court next month over a law that aims to force ByteDance to sell the app or face a ban in the United States.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-justice-department-sues-tiktok-for-breaking-child-privacy-laws-190456433.html?src=rss

Apple is fighting Tencent and ByteDance over in-app payments in China

Posted on by

Apple has been pressuring ByteDance and Tencent to close loopholes in China that funnel customers to external payment systems for making in-app purchases, according to a report by Bloomberg. Anyone living in the West knows the drill here. Apple wants that 30 percent commission.

Reporting indicates this pressure campaign began in May. Apple allegedly warned Tencent that it would reject crucial WeChat updates if it didn’t eliminate the ability for users to make payments outside of Apple’s ecosystem. Tencent complied with the original request, issuing an update in July, but Apple went one step further.

WeChat is home to thousands of third-party mini-games and experiences. Apple asked Tencent to disable in-game chat between creators and players, as that's another theoretical loophole that could funnel users to third-party payment systems. Tencent has yet to agree to this request.

Back in June, Apple reportedly did something similar with ByteDance. It threatened to withhold updates of Douyin, which is basically the Chinese version of TikTok, unless it plugged any gaps that steer users away from that much-coveted 30 percent commission. According to Bloomberg, ByteDance has yet to issue a formal response.

These are aggressive moves on the part of Apple. China is the world’s largest smartphone market, sure, but the iPhone isn’t the dominant brand throughout the country. As a matter of fact, the phone failed to crack the top five in sales last quarter and the company recently experienced a 6.5 percent decline in profits.

It’s also worth noting that both ByteDance and Tencent aren’t happy corporate warriors looking out for the little guy. These massive companies levy their own commissions on creators and likely didn’t want Apple cutting into their bottom lines.

An Apple spokesperson was unusually blunt in a statement to Bloomberg, simply saying that company guidelines dictate that the sale of all digital goods must go through its system and that the review team has the power to reject app submissions that violate that policy. Neither Tencent or ByteDance issued a comment to Bloomberg. 

China, like the rest of the world, has been cracking down on walled gardens like Apple’s App Store. Despite the country’s hesitance to continue allowing closed ecosystems controlled by a single entity, Apple CEO Tim Cook is bullish about its prospects in China. “We continue to be confident in the long-term opportunity in China,” he said during a recent earnings call. “I don’t know how every chapter of the book reads, but we’re very confident in the long term.”

Apple is facing numerous legal hurdles all over the world regarding its Hungry Hungry Hippos approach to gobbling up commission fees. The European Commission issued a ruling that dictates it must allow app developers to steer users to payment systems and offers outside of the App Store. The company also faces potential fines from the EU, to the tune of ten percent of global annual revenue. As for the US, Epic sued Apple over its developer transaction fee policy and many other companies have expressed their own concerns. It's also worth nothing that Tencent owns a 40 percent stake in Epic Games. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-is-fighting-tencent-and-bytedance-over-in-app-payments-in-china-155949462.html?src=rss

AI startup argues scraping every song on the internet is ‘fair use’

Posted on by

When most tech companies are challenged with a lawsuit, the expected defense is to deny wrongdoing. To give a reasonable explanation of why the business' actions were not breaking any laws. Music AI startups Udio and Suno have gone for a different approach: admit to doing exactly what you were sued for.

Udio and Suno were sued in June, with music labels Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group claiming they trained their AI models by scraping copyrighted materials from the Internet. In a court filing today, Suno acknowledged that its neural networks do in fact scrape copyrighted material: "It is no secret that the tens of millions of recordings that Suno’s model was trained on presumably included recordings whose rights are owned by the Plaintiffs in this case." And that's because its training data "includes essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet," which likely include millions of illegal copies of songs. 

But the company is taking the line that its scraping falls under the umbrella of fair use. "It is fair use under copyright law to make a copy of a protected work as part of a back-end technological process, invisible to the public, in the service of creating an ultimately non-infringing new product," the statement reads. Its argument seems to be that since the AI-generated tracks it creates don't include samples, illegally obtaining all of those tracks to train the AI model isn't a problem.

Calling the defendants' actions "evading and misleading," the RIAA, which initiated the lawsuit, had an unsurprisingly harsh response to the filing. "Their industrial scale infringement does not qualify as ‘fair use’. There’s nothing fair about stealing an artist’s life’s work, extracting its core value, and repackaging it to compete directly with the originals," a spokesperson for the organization said. "Defendants had a ready lawful path to bring their products and tools to the market – obtain consent before using their work, as many of their competitors already have. That unfair competition is directly at issue in these cases."

Whatever the next phase of this litigation entails, prepare your popcorn. It should be wild.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/ai-startup-argues-scraping-every-song-on-the-internet-is-fair-use-233132459.html?src=rss

AI startup argues scraping every song on the internet is ‘fair use’

Posted on by

When most tech companies are challenged with a lawsuit, the expected defense is to deny wrongdoing. To give a reasonable explanation of why the business' actions were not breaking any laws. Music AI startups Udio and Suno have gone for a different approach: admit to doing exactly what you were sued for.

Udio and Suno were sued in June, with music labels Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group claiming they trained their AI models by scraping copyrighted materials from the Internet. In a court filing today, Suno acknowledged that its neural networks do in fact scrape copyrighted material: "It is no secret that the tens of millions of recordings that Suno’s model was trained on presumably included recordings whose rights are owned by the Plaintiffs in this case." And that's because its training data "includes essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open internet," which likely include millions of illegal copies of songs. 

But the company is taking the line that its scraping falls under the umbrella of fair use. "It is fair use under copyright law to make a copy of a protected work as part of a back-end technological process, invisible to the public, in the service of creating an ultimately non-infringing new product," the statement reads. Its argument seems to be that since the AI-generated tracks it creates don't include samples, illegally obtaining all of those tracks to train the AI model isn't a problem.

Calling the defendants' actions "evading and misleading," the RIAA, which initiated the lawsuit, had an unsurprisingly harsh response to the filing. "Their industrial scale infringement does not qualify as ‘fair use’. There’s nothing fair about stealing an artist’s life’s work, extracting its core value, and repackaging it to compete directly with the originals," a spokesperson for the organization said. "Defendants had a ready lawful path to bring their products and tools to the market – obtain consent before using their work, as many of their competitors already have. That unfair competition is directly at issue in these cases."

Whatever the next phase of this litigation entails, prepare your popcorn. It should be wild.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/ai-startup-argues-scraping-every-song-on-the-internet-is-fair-use-233132459.html?src=rss

The Republican National Committee loses its legal challenge to Gmail

Posted on by

A federal judge dismissed a case brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC) against Google over its Gmail service. The suit alleged that Google’s email platform labeled GOP fundraising emails as spam at a higher rate than those from the other side of the aisle.

District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta from the Eastern California District Court dismissed the case with prejudice, preventing the Republican party from bringing its case against Google back to court. The dismissal with prejudice means it cannot bring the case to another court but can still file an appeal to Calabretta’s decision, according to The Verge.

Calabretta wrote in his dismissal order that the RNC failed to state a claim under “any legislative policy” or prove there was “sufficient harm to users of Gmail.”

“The RNC has not shown Google’s alleged conduct has violated any other law, which is a necessary element of intentional interference with economic relations,” Calabretta wrote in his dismissal order. “Accordingly, the court grants Google’s motion to dismiss, this time with prejudice.” Calabretta had previously dismissed the case without prejudice.

Thursday’s ruling marks the second case that the RNC has lost over allegations of unfair filtering by Gmail. The RNC filed a lawsuit in the same court in 2022 seeking damages from Google for “donations it allegedly lost as a result” of labeling fundraising emails as spam. Calabretta called the lawsuit a “close case” but ultimately ruled that the RNC “failed to plausibly allege its claims” that Google’s spam filtering was committed in bad faith, according to court filings.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-republican-national-committee-loses-its-legal-challenge-to-gmail-184122392.html?src=rss

The Republican National Committee loses its legal challenge to Gmail

Posted on by

A federal judge dismissed a case brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC) against Google over its Gmail service. The suit alleged that Google’s email platform labeled GOP fundraising emails as spam at a higher rate than those from the other side of the aisle.

District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta from the Eastern California District Court dismissed the case with prejudice, preventing the Republican party from bringing its case against Google back to court. The dismissal with prejudice means it cannot bring the case to another court but can still file an appeal to Calabretta’s decision, according to The Verge.

Calabretta wrote in his dismissal order that the RNC failed to state a claim under “any legislative policy” or prove there was “sufficient harm to users of Gmail.”

“The RNC has not shown Google’s alleged conduct has violated any other law, which is a necessary element of intentional interference with economic relations,” Calabretta wrote in his dismissal order. “Accordingly, the court grants Google’s motion to dismiss, this time with prejudice.” Calabretta had previously dismissed the case without prejudice.

Thursday’s ruling marks the second case that the RNC has lost over allegations of unfair filtering by Gmail. The RNC filed a lawsuit in the same court in 2022 seeking damages from Google for “donations it allegedly lost as a result” of labeling fundraising emails as spam. Calabretta called the lawsuit a “close case” but ultimately ruled that the RNC “failed to plausibly allege its claims” that Google’s spam filtering was committed in bad faith, according to court filings.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-republican-national-committee-loses-its-legal-challenge-to-gmail-184122392.html?src=rss

CPSC says Amazon is responsible for hazardous items from third-party sellers

Posted on by

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has determined that Amazon is responsible for hazardous or defective products sold by third-party retailers through its platform. The CPSC unanimously decided that more than 400,000 products sold through the Fulfilled by Amazon program represent a "substantial product hazard," and that the tech giant is legally responsible for their recall. It also said that Amazon failed to properly notify buyers about the faulty products and did not encourage buyers to return or destroy those items.

Today's decision is several years in the making, with the CPSC initially suing Amazon in July 2021. This investigation centered on carbon monoxide detectors that did not function correctly, hair dryers that did not have electrocution safeguards and children's sleepwear that did not meet federal flammability standards. Under the decision and order issued by the agency, Amazon must submit plans to notify customers about these faulty products and take steps for getting them returned or destroyed.

We've reached out to Amazon for comment and will update this post if we hear from the retailer.

The Department of Justice took similar actions against eBay in recent months. In September 2023, the department sued eBay after environmentally unsafe materials were put up for sale on the retailer, and in January 2024, the company paid $59 million for a DoJ settlement over pill press machines.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cpsc-says-amazon-is-responsible-for-hazardous-items-from-third-party-sellers-213334907.html?src=rss

Meta will pay $1.4 billion to Texas, settling biometric data collection suit

Posted on by

Meta has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas in order to resolve a lawsuit that accused the company of illegally using facial recognition technology. The suit alleges that Meta used this tech to collect the biometric data of millions of Texans without consent. The agreement marks the largest financial settlement ever paid out to a single state.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2022 and was the first big case brought under the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, which was put into place back in 2009. A provision of this law mandates up to $25,000 per violation and Texas accused Meta of violating the statute “billions of times” via photos and videos that users uploaded to Facebook that were tagged without consent. 

Additionally, the original suit could have led to an additional $10,000 per alleged violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. In other words, Meta just saved itself a bunch of money, considering the sheer number of alleged violations and a maximum financial penalty of $35,000 each.

A spokesperson for Meta told Reuters that it’s happy the matter is settled and that the company is "exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers.” The company, however, continues to deny any wrongdoing, though it has shut down its automated facial recognition system.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking something of a victory lap, declaring in an official statement that the state is fully committed to “standing up to the world’s biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating” privacy rights. Texas and Meta reached this settlement just weeks before a court trial was set to begin.

“Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one’s safety and well-being,” Paxton said when the suit was originally filed. “This is yet another example of Big Tech’s deceitful business practices and it must stop.”

This isn’t the first time Meta has had to issue a large payout to a state regarding the alleged collection of biometric data. The company agreed to pay Illinois $650 million back in 2020 to settle a similar class action suit. That suit alleged that the company had violated a privacy law that requires companies to get explicit consent before collecting biometric data from users. Once again, Meta denied any wrongdoing.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-will-pay-14-billion-to-texas-settling-biometric-data-collection-suit-165451338.html?src=rss