Justia Communications Law Opinion Summaries

Verizon Communications Inc. provided mobile voice and data services to customers and, until 2019, operated a program that sold access to customer device-location data through third-party aggregators. These aggregators resold the data to various entities for uses such as call routing and roadside assistance. Verizon relied on contractual arrangements and an external auditor to ensure that customer consent was obtained before disclosing location data. In 2018, a news report revealed that a third party, Securus Technologies, enabled law enforcement to access customer location data without proper consent, exposing flaws in Verizon’s safeguards. Verizon subsequently terminated access for Securus and related entities, but continued the program for other providers for several months.Following the news report, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initiated an enforcement action, issuing a Notice of Apparent Liability and, after considering Verizon’s response, a forfeiture order. The FCC found that Verizon’s device-location data qualified as “customer proprietary network information” under § 222 of the Communications Act, and that Verizon failed to reasonably protect this information both before and after the Securus incident. The FCC imposed a $46.9 million penalty, calculated as 63 continuing violations—one for each third-party relationship that persisted after the breach was publicized—and included a 50% upward adjustment for egregious conduct. Verizon paid the penalty and petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for review.The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that device-location data is protected under § 222, the FCC’s liability finding was not arbitrary or capricious, and the penalty did not exceed statutory limits. The court also found that Verizon’s Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial was not violated, as Verizon could have obtained a jury trial by declining to pay the penalty and contesting the forfeiture in federal district court. The petition for review was denied. View "Verizon Commc'ns Inc. v. Fed. Commc'ns Comm'n" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, including Eugene Volokh and two social media companies, challenged New York's Hateful Conduct Law, which mandates social media networks to provide mechanisms for reporting hateful conduct and to disclose policies on how they address such reports. The law defines hateful conduct as speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites violence against groups based on protected characteristics. Plaintiffs argued that these requirements compel speech and chill protected speech, violating the First Amendment.The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a preliminary injunction, halting the law's enforcement. The court found that the law likely violates the First Amendment by compelling social media networks to engage in speech and by being overly broad and vague, thus chilling users' speech.The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reviewed the case. The court noted that the constitutionality of the Hateful Conduct Law hinges on its interpretation. If the law requires social media networks to adopt the state's definition of hateful conduct, it would be subject to strict scrutiny and likely fail. However, if the law merely requires disclosure of any content moderation policy without specific reference to the state's definition, it might survive under the more relaxed Zauderer standard.The Second Circuit deferred its decision and certified three questions to the New York Court of Appeals: whether the law requires explicit reference to the state's definition of hateful conduct in social media policies, whether the reporting mechanism must specifically address hateful conduct, and whether social media networks must respond to reports of hateful conduct. The answers to these questions will determine the law's constitutionality. View "Volokh v. James" on Justia Law

Time Warner filed suit alleging a violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1 et seq., in the tying of certain premium cable television services to the leasing of ʺinteractiveʺ set‐top cable boxes. The district court dismissed two iterations of the complaint, including the Third Amended Complaint, the operative complaint for the purposes of this opinion. The court held that the Third Amended Complaint fails to adequately plead facts that, if proven, would establish that:  (i) the set‐top cable boxes and the premium programming they transmit are separate products for the purposes of antitrust law; and (ii) Time Warner possesses sufficient market power in the relevant markets to establish an illegal tie‐in. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "In re Set-Top Cable Television Box Antitrust Litig." on Justia Law

Microsoft appealed from the district court's order denying its motion to quash a warrant issued under section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act (SCA), 18 U.S.C. 2701 et seq., and holding Microsoft in contempt of court for refusing to execute the warrant on the government’s behalf. The warrant directed Microsoft to seize and produce the contents of an e‐mail account - an account believed to be used in furtherance of narcotics trafficking - that it maintains for a customer who uses the company’s electronic communications services. Microsoft produced its customer’s non‐content information to the government, as directed. That data was stored in the United States. But Microsoft ascertained that, to comply fully with the warrant, it would need to access customer content that it stores and maintains in Ireland and to import that data into the United States for delivery to federal authorities. The court concluded that Congress did not intend the SCA’s warrant provisions to apply extraterritorially. The focus of those provisions is protection of a user’s privacy interests. Accordingly, the SCA does not authorize a United States court to issue and enforce an SCA warrant against a United States‐based service provider for the contents of a customer’s electronic communications stored on servers located outside the United States. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court lacked authority to enforce the warrant against Microsoft. The court reversed the denial of the motion to quash because Microsoft has complied with the warrant’s domestic directives and resisted only its extraterritorial aspect; vacated the finding of civil contempt; and remanded with instructions to the district court to quash the warrant insofar as it directs Microsoft to collect, import, and produce to the government customer content stored outside the United States. View "Microsoft v. United States" on Justia Law

Peter Paul Biro, a controversial figure known in the art world for using fingerprint analysis to authenticate art in an effort to insert a measure of objectivity into a previously subjective process, filed suit against the New Yorker defendants as well as republishers for defamation after an article was published about him. Among other things, the article contained interviews of various individuals critical of plaintiff, and it suggested that he stood to profit from some of his more dubious authentications. The district court dismissed the complaint. The court held that Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires a limited‐purpose public figure to plead in a plausible way that defendants acted with actual malice. In this case, the court concluded that plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that defendants acted with actual malice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Biro v. Conde Nast" on Justia Law