The European Council (EC) and the European Union (EU) Parliament Saturday reached a provisional political agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark internet law proposed by the EC in 2020. The DSA intends to prevent the circulation of illegal digital content and to protect the fundamental rights of users by requiring online intermediaries such [...]
A federal class action antitrust complaint was filed Wednesday against Google for allegedly leveraging its dominance in the GPS navigation mapping market through improperly and unlawfully connecting Google Maps, Waze, and related services. This allegedly locks app developers into the “Google ecosystem” and subjects them to “egregious and anticompetitive price hikes.” The lawsuit was jointly [...]
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Thursday ruled in favor of Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a suit filed by Genius alleging unfair competition and breach of contract pertaining to the misuse of Genius’s transcribed lyrics in its search engine. The lawsuit claims that Google used Genius’s song lyrics transcriptions in its [...]
President Joe Biden Thursday signed a bill into law prohibiting employers from forcing arbitration agreements upon victims of workplace sexual assault and harassment. Originally introduced in 2017 by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Lindsey O. Graham(R-SC), the bill passed with bipartisan support last month. The act amends the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to render invalid and [...]
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected Poland and Hungary’s challenge Wednesday of the EU budget’s conditionality mechanism for disbursement of funding to the EU Member States, clearing the way for the European Commission (EC) to withhold payments to the two nations. The EU budget’s conditionality mechanism regulation permits the European Council to suspend payments from [...]
The Department of Justice Monday partially unsealed a 21-count indictment of China-based telecommunications company Hytera Communications Corp. LTD on charges of conspiring to commit theft of trade secrets of rival Motorola Solutions Inc. The 15 trade secrets, which constitute the core subject of Monday’s federal indictment, pertain to the source code, design and implementation of operation [...]
The Austrian Data Protection Authority (DPA) Thursday ruled that an Austrian website provider’s continuous use of Google Analytics and the resultant transfer of personal data to Google violated the European Union’s (EU) privacy law, the General Data Protection Rules (GDPR). The ruling responded to a series of representations filed by the Austrian privacy advocacy group [...]
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) Friday initiated an antitrust inquiry into Alphabet Inc.’s alleged abuse of market dominance in news aggregation services. The inquiry was initiated by the antitrust regulator under Section 26(1) of India’s Competition Act in response to a complaint filed by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) alleging that Alphabet Inc.’s search [...]
The Delhi High Court Tuesday dismissed two petitions filed by Future Group companies seeking to quash Amazon’s arbitration proceedings before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC). Both the petitions asked the court to direct the SIAC to first decide on the Future Group’s application for terminating its 2019 investment deal with Amazon before continuing with [...]
In his 2021 year-end report, US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stressed the importance of ensuring the federal judiciary retains its institutional independence. Speaking on the constitutional importance of the Court’s ability to self govern and institute reforms of its own accord without undue Congressional influence, he wrote: The judiciary’s power to manage its internal [...]
