Amazon has been sued in a proposed U.S. class action that accuses the online retailer of violating consumer protection law by steering shoppers to higher-priced items to earn extra fees. Filed this week in the Seattle federal court, the complaint cites the recent FTC antitrust case against Amazon. It alleges Amazon's algorithm for its "Buy Box" often shows higher-priced options over faster, cheaper alternatives. The suit says shoppers click Amazon's "Buy Now" button nearly 98% of the time, falsely believing its choices offer the best deal. Amazon created the algorithm to benefit third-party sellers that pay "hefty fees" for its Fulfillment By Amazon services, the suit alleges.

"The jury took little time to determine that Michael Mann had been defamed by conservative writers who likened him to a pedophile," writes longtime Slashdot reader BishopBerkeley in a follow-up to Wednesday's story. "He has received a $1 million judgment against the writers. This was likely because scrutiny of his data showed no malfeasance or misuse of data, but the 'conservative' writers' accusations continued, nevertheless." The Associated Press reports: Mann's research was investigated after his and other scientists' emails were leaked in 2009 in an incident that brought further scrutiny of the "hockey stick" graph, with skeptics claiming Mann manipulated data. Investigations by Penn State and others found no misuse of data by Mann, but his work continued to draw attacks, particularly from conservatives. "Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data," Simberg wrote. Another writer, Mark Steyn, later referenced Simberg's article in his own piece in National Review, calling Mann's research "fraudulent."

The jury in Superior Court of the District of Columbia awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each writer; it also awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn. It announced its verdict after four weeks of trial and one day of deliberations. During the trial, Steyn represented himself, but said through his manager Melissa Howes that he would be appealing the $1 million award in punitive damages, saying it would have to face "due process scrutiny."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple has argued for years that developers who don't want to abide by its rules for native iOS apps can always write web apps. It has done so in its platform guidelines, in congressional testimony, and in court. Web developers, for their part, maintain that Safari and its underlying WebKit engine still lack the technical capabilities to allow web apps to compete with native apps on iOS hardware. To this day, it's argued, the fruit cart's laggardly implementation of Push Notifications remains subpar.

The enforcement of Europe's Digital Markets Act was expected to change that -- to promote competition held back by gatekeepers. But Apple, in a policy change critics have called "malicious compliance," appears to be putting web apps at an even greater disadvantage under the guise of compliance with European law. In the second beta release of iOS 17.4, which incorporates code to accommodate Europe's Digital Markets Act, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have been demoted from standalone apps that use the whole screen to shortcuts that open within the default browser. This appears to solely affect users in the European Union, though your mileage may vary. Concerns about this demotion of PWAs surfaced earlier this month, with the release of the initial iOS 17.4 beta. As noted by Open Web Advocacy -- a group that has lobbied to make the web platform more capable -- "sites installed to the home screen failed to launch in their own top-level activities, opening in Safari instead."

The Federal Trade Commission isn't happy with the outcome of Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, telling a court on Wednesday that Microsoft's recent layoffs contradict promises it made to get the merger approved. From a report: In a letter to the clerk of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the FTC criticized Microsoft for the layoff of 1,900 workers in January, which represented about 8% of its gaming division. The layoffs largely affected employees at Activision Blizzard. The antitrust regulator explained that the layoffs were "inconsistent with Microsoft's suggestion to this Court that the two companies will operate independently post-merger."

"As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business," Microsoft Gaming chief Phil Spencer said in a memo announcing the layoffs in January. "Together, we've set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we're all aligned on the best opportunities for growth." The letter comes two weeks after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, urged the FTC to maintain its firm stance against the merger.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: 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 (PDF) that Google struck a deal making its search engine the default on Apple's Safari web browser specifically to keep Apple from competing in the general search market. These payments to Apple, users alleged, have "stunted innovation" and "deprived" users of "quality, service, and privacy that they otherwise would have enjoyed but for Google's anticompetitive conduct." They also allege that it created a world where users have fewer choices, enabling Google to prefer its own advertisers, which users said caused an "annoying and damaging distortion" of search results.

In an order (PDF) granting the tech companies' motion to dismiss, US District Judge Rita Lin said that users did not present enough evidence to support claims for relief. Lin dismissed some claims with prejudice but gave leave to amend others, allowing users another chance to keep their case -- now twice-dismissed -- at least partially alive. Under Lin's order, users will not be able to amend claims that Google and Apple executives allegedly sealed the default search deal on the condition that Apple would not create its own general search engine through "private, secret, and clandestine personal meetings." Because plaintiffs showed no evidence pinpointing exactly when Apple allegedly agreed to stay out of the general search market, these meetings, Lin reasoned, could just as easily indicate "rational, legal business behavior," rather than an "illegal conspiracy."

Users attempted to argue that Google and Apple intentionally hid these facts from the public, but Lin wrote that their "conclusory and vague allegations that defendants 'secretly conducted meetings' and 'engaged in conduct to obfuscate internal communications' are plainly insufficient." Sharing bystander photos documenting Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple's Tim Cook meeting at a restaurant with a manila folder tucked under Pichai's elbow did not help users' case. Lin was also not moved by users demonstrating that Google has a history of destroying evidence, because "they put forth no specific factual allegations that defendants did so in this case." However, users will have 30 days to amend currently "inadequately" alleged claims that "Google's exclusive default agreement, under which Apple set Google as the default search engine for its Safari web browser, foreclosed competition in the general search services market in the United States," Lin wrote. If users miss that deadline, the case will be tossed with no opportunities to further amend claims.

Julia Simon reports via NPR: In a D.C. courtroom, a trial is wrapping up this week with big stakes for climate science. One of the world's most prominent climate scientists is suing a right-wing author and a policy analyst for defamation. The case comes at a time when attacks on scientists are proliferating, says Peter Hotez, professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology at Baylor College of Medicine. Even as misinformation about scientists and their work keeps growing, Hotez says scientists haven't yet found a good way to respond. "The reason we're sort of fumbling at this is it's unprecedented. And there is no roadmap," he says. The climate scientist at the center of this trial is Michael Mann. The professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania gained prominence for helping make one of the most accessible, consequential graphs in the history of climate science. First published in the late 1990s, the graph shows thousands of years of relatively stable global temperatures. Then, when humans start burning lots of coal and oil, it shows a spike upward. Mann's graph looks like a hockey stick lying on its side, with the blade sticking straight up. The so-called "hockey stick graph" was successful in helping the public understand the urgency of global warming, and that made it a target, says Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity, a climate accountability nonprofit. "Because it became such a powerful image, it was under attack from the beginning," he says.

The attacks came from groups that reject climate science, some funded by the fossil fuel industry. In the midst of these types of attacks -- including the hacking of Mann's and other scientists' emails by unknown hackers -- Penn State, where Mann was then working, opened an investigation into his research. Penn State, as well as the National Science Foundation, found no evidence of scientific misconduct. But a policy analyst and an author wrote that they were not convinced. The trial in D.C. Superior Court involves posts from right-wing author Mark Steyn and policy analyst Rand Simberg. In an online post, Simberg compared Mann to former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, a convicted child sex abuser. Simberg wrote that Mann was the "Sandusky of climate science," writing that Mann "molested and tortured data (PDF)." Steyn called Mann's research fraudulent. Mann sued the two men for defamation. Mann also sued the publishers of the posts, National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, but in 2021, the court ruled they couldn't be held liable.

In court, Mann has argued that he lost funding and research opportunities. Steyn said in court that if Penn State's president, Graham Spanier, covered up child sexual assault, why wouldn't he cover up for Mann's science. The science in question used ice cores and tree rings to estimate Earth's past temperatures. "If Graham Spanier is prepared to cover up child rape, week in, week out, year in, year out, why would he be the least bit squeamish about covering up a bit of hanky panky with the tree rings and the ice cores?" Steyn asked the court. Mann and Steyn declined to speak to NPR during the ongoing trial. One of Simberg's lawyers, Victoria Weatherford, said "inflammatory does not equal defamatory" and that her client is allowed to express his opinion, even if it were wrong. "No matter how offensive or distasteful or heated it is," Weatherford tells NPR, "that speech is absolutely protected under the First Amendment when it's said against a public figure, if the person saying it believed that what they said was true."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vancouver Sun: A cryptocurrency firm has lost a bid to force B.C. Hydro to provide the vast amounts of power needed for its operations, in a court ruling that upholds the provincial government's right to pause power connections for new crypto miners. Conifex Timber Inc., a forestry firm that branched out into cryptocurrency "mining," had gone to the B.C. Supreme Court to have the policy declared invalid. But Justice Michael Tammen ruled Friday that the government's move in December 2022 to pause new connections for cryptocurrency mining for 18 months was reasonable and not unduly discriminatory.

B.C. Hydro CEO Christopher O'Riley had told the court in an affidavit that the data centers proposed by Conifex would have consumed 2.5 million megawatt-hours of electricity a year. That's enough to power and heat more than 570,000 apartments, according to data on the power provider's website. Energy Minister Josie Osborne said when the policy was introduced that cryptocurrency mining consumes "massive amounts of electricity" by running banks of high-powered computers around the clock, but adds "very few jobs" to the local economy. In a statement released Monday, the company said it's "disappointed" with the court's ruling and is considering an appeal. "Conifex continues to believe that the provincial government is missing out on several opportunities available to it to improve energy affordability, accelerate technological innovation, strengthen the reliability and resiliency of the power distribution grid in British Columbia, and achieve more inclusive economic growth," said Conifex in a statement.

In a London court, lawyers for a group supported by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) argued that Craig Wright's assertion of being the inventor of bitcoin is "a brazen lie," challenged by accusations of extensive document forgery to substantiate his claim. Wright's defense disputes these allegations, maintaining that he has presented definitive proof of his role in creating bitcoin. Reuters reports: Craig Wright says he is the author of a 2008 white paper, the foundational text of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, published in the name "Satoshi Nakamoto". He argues this means he owns the copyright in the white paper and has intellectual property rights over the bitcoin blockchain. But the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) -- whose members include Twitter founder Dorsey's payments firm Block -- is asking London's High Court to rule that Wright is not Satoshi.

The five-week hearing, at which Wright will give evidence from Tuesday, is the culmination of years of speculation about the true identity of Satoshi. Wright first publicly claimed to be Satoshi in 2016 and has since taken legal action against cryptocurrency developers and exchanges. COPA, however, says Wright has never provided any genuine proof, accusing him of repeatedly forging documents to support his claim, which Wright denies. Wright sat in court as COPA's lawyer Jonathan Hough said his claim was "a brazen lie, an elaborate false narrative supported by forgery on an industrial scale." Hough said that "there are elements of Dr Wright's conduct that stray into farce," citing his alleged use of ChatGPT to produce forgeries.

But he added: "Dr Wright's conduct is also deadly serious. On the basis of his dishonest claim to be Satoshi, he has pursued claims he puts at hundreds of billions of dollars, including against numerous private individuals." Wright's lawyer Anthony Grabiner, however, argued in court filings that he has produced "clear evidence demonstrating his authorship of the white paper and creation of bitcoin." Grabiner added that it was "striking" that no one else had publicly claimed to be Satoshi. "If Dr Wright were not Satoshi, the real Satoshi would have been expected to come forward to counter the claim," he said.

An anonymous reader shares a report: An underground website called OnlyFake is claiming to use "neural networks" to generate realistic looking photos of fake IDs for just $15, radically disrupting the marketplace for fake identities and cybersecurity more generally. This technology, which 404 Media has verified produces fake IDs nearly instantly, could streamline everything from bank fraud to laundering stolen funds. In our own tests, OnlyFake created a highly convincing California driver's license, complete with whatever arbitrary name, biographical information, address, expiration date, and signature we wanted. The photo even gives the appearance that the ID card is laying on a fluffy carpet, as if someone has placed it on the floor and snapped a picture, which many sites require for verification purposes. 404 Media then used another fake ID generated by this site to successfully step through the identity verification process on OKX. OKX is a cryptocurrency exchange that has recently appeared in multiple court records because of its use by criminals.

Rather than painstakingly crafting a fake ID by hand -- a highly skilled criminal profession that can take years to master -- or waiting for a purchased one to arrive in the mail with the risk of interception, OnlyFake lets essentially anyone generate fake IDs in minutes that may seem real enough to bypass various online verification systems. Or at least fool some people. "The era of rendering documents using Photoshop is coming to an end," an announcement posted to OnlyFake's Telegram account reads. As well as "neural networks," the service claims to use "generators" which create up to 20,000 documents a day. The service's owner, who goes by the moniker John Wick, told 404 Media that hundreds of documents can be generated at once using data from an Excel table.

The non-profit Linux Foundation Energy hopes to develop energy-sector solutions (including standards, specifications, and software) supporting rapid decarbonization by collaborating with industry stakeholders.

And now they're involved in a new partnership with America's Joint Office of Energy — which facilitates collaboration between the federal Department of Energy and its Department of Transportation. The partnership's goal? To "build open-source software tools to support communications between EV charging infrastructure and other systems."

The Buildout reports: The partnership and effort — known as "Project EVerest" — is part of the administration's full-court press to improve the charging experience for EV owners as the industry's nationwide buildout hits full stride. "Project EVerest will be a game changer for reliability and interoperability for EV charging," Gabe Klein, executive director of the administration's Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, said yesterday in a post on social media....

Administration officials said that a key driver of the move to institute broad standards for software is to move beyond an era of unreliable and disparate EV charging services throughout the U.S. Dr. K. Shankari, a principal software architect at the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, said that local and state governments now working to build out EV charging infrastructure could include a requirement that bidding contractors adhere to Project EVerest standards. That, in turn, could have a profound impact on providers of EV charging stations and services by requiring them to adapt to open source standards or lose the opportunity to bid on public projects. Charging availability and reliability are consistently mentioned as key turnoffs for potential EV buyers who want the infrastructure to be ready, easy, and consistent to use before making the move away from gas cars.

Specifically, the new project will aim to create what's known as an open source reference implementation for EV charging infrastructure — a set of standards that will be open to developers who are building applications and back-end software... And, because the software will be available for any company, organization, or developer to use, it will allow the creation of new EV infrastructure software at all levels without software writers having to start from scratch. "LF Energy exists to build the shared technology investment that the entire industry can build on top of," said Alex Thompson of LF Energy during the web conference. "You don't want to be re-inventing the wheel."
The tools will help communication between charging stations (and adjacent chargers), as well as vehicles and batteries, user interfaces and mobile devices, and even backend payment systems or power grids. An announcement from the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation says this software stack "will reduce instances of incompatibility resulting from proprietary systems, ultimately making charging more reliable for EV drivers." "The Joint Office is paving the way for innovation by partnering with an open-source foundation to address the needs of industry and consumers with technical tools that support reliable, safe and interoperable EV charging," said Sarah Hipel, Standards and Reliability Program Manager at the Joint Office.... With this collaborative development model, EVerest will speed up the adoption of EVs and decarbonization of transportation in the United States by accelerating charger development and deployment, increase customizability, and ensure high levels of security for the nation's growing network.
Linux Foundation Energy adds that reliable charging "is key to ensuring that anyone can confidently choose to ride or drive electric," predicting it will increase customizability for different use cases while offering long-term maintainability, avoiding vendor-lock in, and ensuring high levels of security. This is a pioneering example of the federal government collaborating to deploy code into an open source project...

"The EVerest project has been demonstrated in pilots around the world to make EV charging far more reliable and reduces the friction and frustration EV drivers have experienced when a charger fails to work or is not continually maintained," said LF Energy Executive Director Alex Thornton. "We look forward to partnering with the Joint Office to create a robust firmware stack that will stand the test of time, and be maintained by an active and growing global community to ensure the nation's charging infrastructure meets the needs of a growing fleet of electric vehicles today and into the future."
Thanks to Slashdot reader ElectricVs for sharing the article.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A California teenager prosecutors say is responsible for hundreds of swatting attacks around the United States was exposed after law enforcement pieced together a digital trail left on some of the internet's largest platforms, according to court records released this week. Alan Winston Filion, a 17-year-old from Lancaster, California, faces four felony charges in Florida's Seminole County related to swatting, or fake threats called into the police to provoke a forceful response, according to Florida state prosecutors. Police arrested Filion on January 18, and he was extradited to Seminole County this week.

Filion's arrest, first reported by WIRED on January 26, marks the culmination of a multi-agency manhunt for the person police claim is responsible for swatting attacks on high schools, historically black colleges and universities, mosques, and federal agents, and for threats to bomb the Pentagon, members of the United States Senate, and the US Supreme Court. Ultimately, a YouTube channel, Discord chats, and usernames related to The Lord of the Rings helped lead authorities to Filion's doorstep.

Florida prosecutors charged Filion with four felony counts, including three related to allegedly making false reports to law enforcement and one for unlawful use of a two-way radio for "facilitating or furthering an act of terrorism" that authorities say targeted people based on race, religion, or other protected classes. While prosecutors alleged that Filion "is responsible for hundreds of swatting and bomb threat incidents throughout the United States," the charges Filion faces relate to a single May 12, 2023, swatting attack against the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida. [...] At 2 pm EST on Wednesday, Filion shuffled into a Seminole County courtroom and stood quietly as the judge read the charges against him. He is currently being held without bond.

When FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, the defunct cryptocurrency exchange suffered a hack that resulted in more than $380 million in crypto stolen from FTX's virtual wallets. It turns out that FTX was hit with a SIM-swapping scam orchestrated by ringleader Robert Powell. Powell, along with Carter Rohn and Emily Hernandez, have been indicted and are due to appear in Chicago federal court later Friday for a detention hearing. CNBC reports: The three defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud, in a scheme that ran from March 2021 to last April, and involved the co-conspirators traveling to cellphone retail stores in more than 15 states. The indictment says the trio shared the personal identifying information of more than 50 victims, created fake identification documents in the victims' names, impersonated them and then accessed their victims' "online, financial and social media accounts for the purpose of stealing money and data."

The scheme relied on duping phone companies into swapping the Subscriber Identity Module of cell phone subscribers into a cellphone controlled by members of the conspiracy, the indictment said. That in turn allowed the conspirators to defeat the multifactor authentication protection on the victims' accounts, giving them access to the money in those accounts. The indictment does not identify FTX by name as the main victim of the conspiracy, but the details of the hack described in that charging document align with the details publicly known about the theft from FTX, which was collapsing at the time of the attack.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the founding father of cryptocurrency -- and a mystery. In October 2008, Nakamoto gave Bitcoin to the world. Then they disappeared. To this day, nobody knows who Nakamoto is. Amongst the speculation, one man stepped forward: Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who has, since 2016, maintained that he is Nakamoto. Now he'll have to prove it in court. Wired: On February 5, a trial will begin in the UK High Court, the purpose of which is to challenge Wright's claim to Satoshi-hood. The case is being brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a nonprofit consortium of crypto and tech firms, in response to a slew of lawsuits filed by Wright against Bitcoin developers and other parties, in which he is trying to assert intellectual property rights over Bitcoin as its ostensible creator.

In its complaint, COPA claims that Wright's behavior has had a "chilling effect," obstructing the progress of Bitcoin by scaring away developers. It is seeking a declaration that Wright does not own the copyright to the white paper that first proposed Bitcoin and did not author the original code, and an injunction preventing him from saying otherwise. In effect, COPA is asking the court to rule that Wright is not Nakamoto. The verdict will have direct implications for a tangle of interlocking cases, which will determine whether Wright can prevent developers from working on Bitcoin without his permission and dictate the terms under which the Bitcoin system can be used.

Wright was first nominated as a potential candidate by both WIRED and Gizmodo on the same day in December 2015. The original story, based on a trove of leaked documents, proposed that Wright had "either invented Bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did." A few days later, WIRED published a second story, pointing to discrepancies in the evidence that supported the latter interpretation. Wright did not respond initially to reports that he was Nakamoto, although he did largely scrub his online accounts. By the following year, though, he had begun to present himself publicly as Bitcoin's creator. He has tried on multiple occasions -- through various means -- to categorically prove the claim, earning himself a band of supporters who swear by his credibility. In 2016, Wright was able to convince Gavin Andresen, an early contributor to Bitcoin's underlying software, and Jon Matonis, former director of the Bitcoin Foundation, an advocacy group.

Joshua Schulte, a former CIA software engineer, was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Thursday for carrying out the largest theft of classified information in the agency's history and possessing child pornography. The Guardian reports: The 40-year sentence by US district judge Jesse Furman was for "crimes of espionage, computer hacking, contempt of court, making false statements to the FBI, and child pornography," federal prosecutors said in a statement. The judge did not impose a life sentence as sought by prosecutors. Joshua Schulte was convicted in July 2022 on four counts each of espionage and computer hacking and one count of lying to FBI agents, after giving classified materials to the whistleblowing agency WikiLeaks in the so-called Vault 7 leak. Last August, a judge mostly upheld the conviction.

WikiLeaks in March 2017 began publishing the materials, which concerned how the CIA surveilled foreign governments, alleged extremists and others by compromising their electronics and computer networks. Prosecutors characterized Schulte's actions as "the largest data breach in the history of the CIA, and his transmission of that stolen information to WikiLeaks is one of the largest unauthorized disclosures of classified information" in US history. Prosecutors also said Schulte received thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse, and that they found the material in Schulte's New York apartment, in an encrypted container beneath three layers of password protection, during the CIA leaks investigation.

A lawyer for FTX said the defunct crypto exchange has abandoned its plans to relaunch, instead opting to liquidate all assets and return funds to customers. The Guardian reports: The exchange, founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, has been negotiating for months with potential bidders and investors, but none were willing to put in enough money to rebuild it, FTX attorney Andy Dietderich said at a bankruptcy court hearing in Delaware. The failed negotiations underscored the fact that FTX was never what it appeared to be, and that Bankman-Fried never built the underlying technology or administration necessary to run the company as a viable business, Dietderich said.

Bankman-Fried has been convicted on fraud charges related to his operation of FTX. He faces decades in prison. "FTX was an irresponsible sham created by a convicted felon," Dietderich said. "The costs and risks of creating a viable exchange from what Mr Bankman-Fried left in a dumpster were simply too high." The company will instead focus on liquidating its assets to repay customers whose cryptocurrency deposits were locked when the company filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. FTX has recovered over $7 billion in assets to repay customers, and it has reached agreements with government regulators who have agreed to wait until customers are fully repaid before attempting to collect on about $9 billion in claims, Dietderich said. While FTX plans to repay its customers, the exchange will calculate their repayment based on cryptocurrency prices from November 2022, when the crypto market was suffering a prolonged slump. "The price of bitcoin has risen to about $43,300 from its November 2022 price of $16,872," notes the report.

It is the end of an era for Big Oil in California, as the most populous U.S. state divorces itself from fossil fuels in its fight against climate change. From a report: California's oil output a century ago amounted to it being the fourth-largest crude producer in the U.S., and spawned hundreds of oil drillers, including some of the largest still in existence. Oil led to its car culture of iconic highways, drive-in theaters, banks and restaurants that endures today. On Friday, however, the marriage will officially end. The two largest U.S. oil producers, Exxon Mobil and Chevron will formally disclose a combined $5 billion writedown of California assets when they report fourth-quarter results.

"They are definitely getting a divorce," said Jamie Court, president of advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which said the companies long ago stopped investing in California production, and now want to hive off their old wells there. "They've been separated for more than a decade, now they are just signing the papers," he said. Exxon Mobil last year exited onshore production in the state, ending a 25-year-long partnership with Shell when they sold their joint-venture properties. The state's regulatory environment has impeded efforts to restart offshore production, Exxon said this month, leading to an exit that includes financing a Texas company's purchase of its offshore properties. The No.1 U.S. oil producer's asset writedown will cost about $2.5 billion and officially end five decades of oil production off the coast of Southern California.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Citibank on Tuesday, alleging the big bank failed to do enough to protect and reimburse victims of fraud. From a report: The lawsuit argues that New York customers lost millions of dollars -- in some cases their entire lifesavings -- to scammers and hackers because of Citi's weak security and anti-fraud measures. According to the NY AG, Citi does not do enough to prevent unauthorized account takeovers, illegally refuses to reimburse fraud victims and "misleads" customers about their rights after their accounts are hacked.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Citi has "overpromised and underdelivered on security" and failed to respond appropriately to red flags. "Banks are supposed to be the safest place to keep money, yet Citi's negligence has allowed scammers to steal millions of dollars from hardworking people, James said in a statement. There is no excuse for Citi's failure to protect and prevent millions of dollars from being stolen from customers' accounts and my office will not write off illegal behavior from big banks."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: Reeling from one of the most catastrophic recalls in decades, Philips Respironics said it will stop selling sleep apnea machines and other respiratory devices in the United States under a settlement with the federal government that will all but end the company's reign as one of the top makers of breathing machines in the country. The agreement, announced by Philips early Monday, comes more than two years after the company pulled millions of its popular breathing devices off the shelves after admitting that an industrial foam fitted in the machines to reduce noise could break apart and release potentially toxic particles and fumes into the masks worn by patients.

It could be years before Philips can resume sales of the devices, made in two factories outside Pittsburgh. The company said all the conditions of the multiyear consent decree -- negotiated in the wake of the recall with the Department of Justice on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration -- must be met first. The move by a company that aggressively promoted its machines in ad campaigns and health conferences -- in one case with the help of an Elvis impersonator -- follows relentless criticism about the safety of the machines. A ProPublica and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigation found the company held back thousands of complaints about the crumbling foam for more than a decade before warning customers about the dangers. Those using the machines included some of the most fragile people in the country, including infants, the elderly, veterans and patients with chronic conditions.

"It's about time," said Richard Callender, a former mayor in Pennsylvania who spent years using one of the recalled machines. "How many people have to suffer and get sick and die?" Philips said the agreement includes other requirements the company must meet before it can start selling the machines again, including the marquee DreamStation 2, a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, device heralded by Philips when it was unveiled in 2021 for the treatment of sleep apnea. The settlement, which is still being finalized, has to be approved by a court and has not yet been released by the government. It remains unclear how the halt in sales will impact patients and doctors. The company's U.S. market share for sleep apnea devices in 2020 was about 37% -- behind only one competitor, medical device maker ResMed, according to an analysis by iData Research. Philips has dominated the market in ventilator sales, the data shows.

UnknowingFool writes: Jurors on Friday, January 26, 2024 ruled in favor of celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D (real name Katherine von Drachenberg) in a copyright lawsuit regarding a photo of Miles Davis in that her use of the photo was not copyright infringement. The photographer of the photo, Jeffrey Sedlik, sued Von D in February 2021 after she used the photo as the basis for a tattoo she inked on a friend. Kat Von D, who gained fame in the reality shows about tattoo artists "LA Ink" and "Miami Ink", put the tattoo on her friend's arm in 2017 as a gift. The jury found that the tattoo was not "substantially similar" to the photo and were also persuaded that the non-commercial nature of the work meant her use of the photo would be fair use.

The plaintiff Sedilk said he is planning to appeal the ruling arguing it contradicts the Supreme Court ruling in Warhol Foundation vs Goldsmith (PDF) where the artist Andy Warhol made a silkscreen print of Lynn Goldsmith's photo of Prince. The main difference pointed out by Von D's lawyers is that Warhol charged $10,000 for his print whereas Von D did not charge her friend for the tattoo and that is was closer to "fan art".

An anonymous reader shares a report: The estate of George Carlin has filed a federal lawsuit against the comedy podcast Dudesy for an hour-long comedy special sold as an AI-generated impression of the late comedian. But a representative for one of the podcast hosts behind the special now admits that it was actually written by a human. In the lawsuit, filed by Carlin manager Jerold Hamza in a California district court, the Carlin estate points out that the special, "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead," (which was set to "private" on YouTube shortly after the lawsuit was filed) presents itself as being created by an AI trained on decades worth of Carlin's material. That training would, by definition, involve making "unauthorized copies" of "Carlin's original, copyrighted routines" without permission in order "to fabricate a semblance of Carlin's voice and generate a Carlin stand-up comedy routine," according to the lawsuit.

Despite the presentation as an AI creation, there was a good deal of evidence that the Dudesy podcast and the special itself were not actually written by an AI, as Ars laid out in detail this week. And in the wake of this lawsuit, a representative for Dudesy host Will Sasso admitted as much to The New York Times. "It's a fictional podcast character created by two human beings, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen," spokeswoman Danielle Del told the newspaper. "The YouTube video 'I'm Glad I'm Dead' was completely written by Chad Kultgen." Regardless of that admission, Carlin estate lawyer Josh Schiller told the Times that the lawsuit would move forward. "We don't know what they're saying to be true," he said. "What we will know is that they will be deposed. They will produce documents, and there will be evidence that shows one way or another how the show was created."