Court case

The Justice Department, joined by 16 other state and district attorneys general, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple for monopolization or attempted monopolization of smartphone markets in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleges that Apple illegally maintains a monopoly over smartphones by selectively imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access points from, developers.

A majority of the Supreme Court seemed wary on March 18 of a bid by two Republican-led states to limit the Biden Administration’s interactions with social media companies, with several justices questioning the states’ legal theories and factual assertions. Most of the justices appeared convinced that government officials should be able to try to persuade private companies, whether news organizations or tech platforms, not to publish information so long as the requests are not backed by coercive threats.

The Supreme Court ruled that public officials who post about topics relating to their work on their personal social media accounts are acting on behalf of the government, and therefore can be held liable for violating the First Amendment when they block their critics, only when they have the power to speak on behalf of the state and are actually exercising that power. The court’s decisions came in a pair of cases, involving local officials in California and Michigan who blocked constituents who made repetitive and critical comments on their personal social media accounts.

Does a search warrant ordering Google to give law enforcement information regarding internet searches containing specific keywords made during a particular window of time violate the Fourth Amendment? This question was before the Colorado Supreme Court in 2023 and is now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

Social media companies have long made their own rules about the content they allow on their sites. But a pair of cases set to be argued before the Supreme Court on Monday will test the limits of that freedom, examining whether they can be legally required to host users’ speech. The cases, Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, deal with the constitutionality of laws created in Florida and Texas, respectively.

LTD Broadband has filed a petition for review of the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to deny it funding as part of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. LTD, which largely offers fixed wireless broadband, filed a request for judicial review with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 2, contesting the agency decision on December 4, 2023. The action follows a series of events stemming from the FCC's proposal for a $21.7-million fine against LTD for defaulting on its bids in the RDOF broadband subsidy program.

A federal appeals court tossed a $1 billion verdict won by music publishers against Cox Communications, ordering a new trial on how much the internet provider should owe in damages for illegal downloads by its customers. The case stems from a 2018 copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by leading record companies and music publishers, including Sony, Universal Music and Warner Music.

While the world awaits closing arguments later this year in the US government's antitrust case over Google's search dominance, a California judge has dismissed a lawsuit from 26 Google users who claimed that Google's default search agreement with Apple violates antitrust law and has ruined everyone's search results. Users had argued that Google struck a deal making its search engine the default on Apple's Safari web browser specifically to keep Apple from competi

Federal courts are full of cases that are challenging the authority of federal regulatory agencies, including the case of Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, which is pending before the Supreme Court as of January 2024. Hedge fund manager George Jarkesy was accused of committing fraud by misrepresenting himself to investors. The case was heard by an administrative law judge at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who imposed a fine and penalties, and ordered Jarkesy to disgorge $685,000 in unlawful profits.

In the fall of 2020, around the height of the debate over pandemic school closures, a lawsuit in California made a serious claim: The state had failed its constitutional obligation to provide an equal education to lower-income, Black and Hispanic students, who had less access to online learning. State officials distributed more than 45,000 laptops and more than 73,000 other computing devices to students, according to court documents in the case.