Court case

Big telecommunication companies (telcos) and almost every large cable company use what the industry calls "hidden fees." These fees are not mentioned when advertising for a service but are put onto customer bills. There is a class action lawsuit in California that shows why broadband providers are not worried about using hidden fees. In times past, when the big companies were regulated, they might have been ordered to make a 100% refund of a fee that regulators decided was questionable.

The first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax in Maryland is no more after less than two years in practice. The tax was struck down in the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court after Judge Alison Asti sided with subsidiaries of Comcast and Verizon, finding that the policy violated the First Amendment, the Internet Tax Freedom Act, and the Dormant Commerce Clause. By only taxing advertising when it is served digitally, the tax discriminated against e-commerce and violated the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, Judge Asti said. He also ruled the tax violated the Dormant Commerce Clause—which pro

Illinois Bell Telephone Company, which does business as AT&T Illinois, agreed to pay $23 million to resolve a federal criminal investigation into alleged misconduct involving the company’s efforts to unlawfully influence former Illinois Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan.

The US Supreme Court will decide whether social media companies can be sued for hosting and recommending terrorist content, taking up two cases that challenge their liability protections. The cases mark the court’s first test of the broad immunity social media companies have enjoyed under a provision known as Section 230, part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. But the law has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans amid questions about whether social media companies have become too powerful. In one case, Alphabet Inc.’s Google is trying to defeat a suit involving Nohemi Go

I write to bring to your attention West Virginia v. EPA, a recent Supreme Court decision that clarified the limitations of certain agency action. Given the Biden administration’s track record, we are compelled to underscore the implications of West Virginia v.

This protest challenges the award of a contract to provide a massive data set for the Government to use in determining which structures in the United States can have broadband internet service installed. Congress has tied more than $40 billion of infrastructure funding to availability maps that the Federal Communications Commission must produce using the data set provided under this contract. LightBox Parent, L.P.

The State of Florida asked the US Supreme Court to reinstate its social media regulation law that made it illegal for sites like Facebook and Twitter to ban politicians. Florida's petition said the Supreme Court should answer the questions of whether the First Amendment prohibits states "from requiring that social-media companies host third-party communications, and from regulating the time, place, and manner in which they do so," and whether the First Amendment prohibits states "from requiring social-media companies to notify and provide an explanation to their users when they censor the u

Conflicting lower court rulings about removing controversial material from social media platforms point toward a landmark Supreme Court decision on whether the First Amendment protects Big Tech’s editorial discretion or forbids its censorship of unpopular views.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a lawsuit against Amazon alleging that the company stifled competition and caused increased prices across California through anticompetitive contracting practices in violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law and Cartwright Act. In order to avoid competing on prices with other online e-commerce sites, Amazon requires merchants to enter into agreements that severely penalize them if their products are offered for a lower price off-Amazon. In the lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta alleges that these agreements thwart the ability of other onli

Google lost most of its appeal to overturn the largest antitrust fine it has so far faced globally, a boost to the European Union’s campaign to rein in alleged anticompetitive conduct by big tech companies.