After two rejections, Apple has approved the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union. "This paves the way for Epic CEO Tim Sweeney to realize his long-stated goal of launching an alternative game store on Apple's closed platform -- at least in Europe," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Apple announced plans to allow third-party app stores on iOS in the region earlier this year, complying with the letter of the law (though some say not the spirit) as required by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which was enacted in hopes of making platforms more open and competitive. Apple's new policies allow for alternative app marketplaces but with some big caveats regarding the deal that app developers agree to.

The change followed years of contentious PR campaigns and court battles around the world between Epic and Apple, with Sweeney proclaiming that Apple's app approval processes are anti-competitive and that its 30 percent cut of app revenues is unfair. Even after the shift, Apple is said to have rejected the Epic Games Store app twice. The rejections were over specific rules about the copy and shape of buttons within the app, though not about its primary function. [...] Apple went ahead and approved the app despite the disagreement over the copy and button designs. However, AppleInsider reported that Apple will still require Epic to change the copy and buttons later.

Andy Maxwell reports via TorrentFreak: On November 4, 2022, the United States Department of Justice and the FBI began seizing Z-Library's domains as part of a major operation to shut down the infamous 'shadow library' platform. A criminal investigation had identified two Russian nationals, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova, as the alleged operators of the site. On October 21, 2022, at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Judge Sanket J. Bulsara ordered their arrest. They were detained in Argentina on November 3, 2022. After arriving at the Ambrosio Taravella International Airport, the unsuspecting couple cleared customs and hired a car from a popular rental company. The United States Embassy informed local authorities that the pair were subject to an Interpol Red Notice.

At what point the Russians' phones were tapped is unclear but, under the authority of a Federal Court arrest warrant, Argentinian law enforcement began tracking the couple's movements as they traveled south in their rented Toyota Corolla. [...] [F]ollowing a visit to El Calafate, the pair were arrested by airport security police as they arrived in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz. They were later transferred to Cordoba. In January 2023, Judge Miguel Hugo Vaca Narvaja authorized the Russians to be detained under house arrest. Approval from Cordoba prosecutor Maximiliano Hairabedian, who was responsible for the request to extradite Napolsky and Ermakova to the United States, was not obtained. With a federal indictment, alleging criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering offenses, waiting for them in the United States, the priority for Napolsky and Ermakova would soon be their fight against extradition. [...]

Patronato del Liberado (Patronage of the Liberated) is responsible for assisting people who have previously been detained by the authorities with family and social reintegration. It's also tasked with monitoring compliance of those on probation or subject to house arrest. According to unnamed 'judicial sources' cited by La Voz, which receives full credit for a remarkable scoop, when the group conducted a regular visit in May, to verify that Napolsky and Ermakova were in compliance with the rules set by the state, there was no trace of them. Patronato del Liberado raised the alarm and Judge Sanchez Freytes was immediately notified. Counsel for the defense during the extradition hearings said that he hadn't been able to contact the Russians either. The Judge ordered an international arrest warrant although there appeared to be at least some hope the pair hadn't left the country. However, that was many weeks ago and with no obvious news suggesting their recapture, the pair could be anywhere by now.

Boeing agreed on Sunday to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the government in a case linked to crashes of its 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people -- a stunning turn for the aerospace giant after the Justice Department determined that Boeing failed to live up to terms of a 2021 deal to avoid prosecution. Washington Post adds: Prosecutors alleged that two Boeing pilots concealed key information from the Federal Aviation Administration about a new automated control system on the Max. The system was implicated in both crashes, causing uncontrollable dives. By agreeing to plead guilty to the single felony count just before a midnight deadline Sunday, the company will avoid going to trial in the high-profile case.

The Justice Department filed documents related to the deal in federal court in Texas late Sunday night, setting up a planned hearing where family members -- who have criticized the pending agreement -- will be permitted to speak out. The court subsequently must decide whether to accept the plea agreement. Boeing had already agreed to $2.5 billion in penalties and payouts in 2021. As part of the new deal, the company will pay an additional $487.2 million in penalties, agree to oversight by an independent monitor, spend at least $455 million to strengthen compliance and safety programs and be placed on supervised probation for roughly three years, according to a Justice Department official. The agreement also included one thing crash victims' families long sought: a meeting with Boeing's board of directors.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Business Insider: It's a political tale as old as time: put up a campaign poster in your yard, and thieves come to snatch it. But according to The Wall Street Journal, those fed up with front lawn looting are embracing a modern solution. Apple's geo-tracking AirTag devices are helping owners find their signs — and sometimes, even the people who stole them.

The practice has already led to charges. In one example cited by the outlet, Florida politician John Dittmore decided to hide the coin-sized gadget on one of his posters after waking up to a number of thefts in May... [Two teenagers were charged with criminal mischief and the theft of nine signs.]

In other cited cases, stolen signs don't end up with teens, but in the homes of electoral opponents. After Chris Torre became the victim of poster snatching, AirTags led him to the residence of Renee Rountree, the Journal said. Both were running for a seat on the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors in Virginia. Her son-in-law was charged with a misdemeanor for stealing the property, while Rountree faced a misdemeanor for receiving stolen goods. In a December trial, she noted plans to return the signs. Rountree has since been ordered to 250 hours of community service.

"I would like to think that this will have a huge deterrent effect," the trial's judge said in the court's transcript, quoted by WSJ.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: With dozens of millions of monthly visits, Animeflix positioned itself as one of the most popular anime piracy portals. The site also has an active Discord community of around 35k members, who actively participate in discussions, art competitions, even a chess tournament. While rightsholders take no offense at these side-projects, the site's core business was streaming pirated videos. That hasn't gone unnoticed; last December Animeflix was listed as one of the shutdown targets of anti-piracy coalition ACE.

Whether these early enforcement efforts were responsible for the site's closure is unclear. In May, rightsholders increased the pressure through the High Court of India, obtaining a broad injunction that effectively suspended Animeflix's main domain name; Animeflix.live. This follow-up action didn't seem to hurt the site too much. It simply moved to new domains, Animeflix.gg and Animeflix.li, informing its users that the old domain name had become "unavailable." Yesterday, the site became unreachable again, initially returning a Cloudflare error message. This time, the domain wasn't the problem but, for reasons unknown, the team decided to shut down the site without prior notice.

"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Animeflix. After careful consideration, we have decided to shut down our service effective immediately. We deeply appreciate your support and enthusiasm over the years." "Thank you for being a part of our journey. We hope the joy and excitement of anime continue to brighten your days through other wonderful platforms," the Animeflix team adds. The Animeflix team doesn't provide any insight into its reasoning, but it's clear that keeping a site like that online isn't without challenges. And, when a pirate site shuts down, voluntarily or not, copyright issues typically play a role. It's clear that rightsholders were keeping an eye on the site, and were actively seeking out options to take it offline. That might have played a role in the shutdown decision but without more information from the team, we can only speculate.

Google is intensifying efforts to decrease its dependency on Apple's Safari browser, as a U.S. antitrust lawsuit threatens its default search engine status on iPhones. The tech giant has been trying to shift more iPhone searches to its own apps, with the percentage rising from 25% five years ago to the low 30s recently, The Information reported Friday.

Progress has stalled in recent months, however. To attract users, Google has run advertising campaigns showcasing unique features like Lens image search. The company recently hired former Instagram executive Robby Stein to lead this initiative, potentially leveraging AI to enhance its apps' appeal. Google paid Apple over $20 billion last year for default status on Safari. Reducing this dependency could protect Google's mobile search advertising revenue if the antitrust ruling goes against it. The report adds: Google executives considered having its new AI Overviews feature, which shows AI-generated responses to search queries, appear on its mobile apps but not on Safari, people who have worked on the product said. But Google ultimately decided against that move.

ZipNada writes: A federal court in Texas has partially blocked the government's ban on noncompete agreements that was set to take effect September 4. An estimated 30 million people, or one in five American workers, are bound by noncompetes. The employment agreements typically prevent workers -- everyone from minimum wage earners to CEOs -- from joining competing businesses or launching ones of their own.

In its complaint, Ryan LLC accused the FTC of overstepping its statutory authority in declaring all noncompetes unfair and anticompetitive. Judge Brown agreed, writing, "The FTC lacks substantive rulemaking authority with respect to unfair methods of competition." Through a statement Wednesday evening, the FTC said its authority is supported by both statute and precedent. "We will keep fighting to free hardworking Americans from unlawful noncompetes, which reduce innovation, inhibit economic growth, trap workers, and undermine Americans' economic liberty," wrote FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar. The FTC has long argued that noncompetes hurt workers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Hikari-no-Akari, a long-established and popular pirate site that specializes in Japanese music, is being targeted in U.S. federal court by Sony Music. [...] The music download portal, which links to externally hosted files, has been operating for well over a decade and currently draws more than a million monthly visits. In addition to the public-facing part of the site, HnA also has a private forum and Discord channel. [...] Apparently, Sony Music Japan has been keeping an eye on the unauthorized music portal. The company has many of its works shared on the site, including anime theme music, which is popular around the globe.

For example, a few weeks ago, HnA posted "Sayonara, Mata Itsuka!" from the Japanese artist Kenshi Yonezu, which is used as the theme song for the asadora series "The Tiger and Her Wings." Around the same time, PEACEKEEPER, a song by Japanese musician STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION, featured in the third season of the series "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime", was shared on the site. Sony Music Japan is a rightsholder for both these tracks, as well as many others that were posted on the site. The music company presumably tried to contact HnA directly to have these listings removed and reached out to its CDN service Cloudflare too, asking it to take action. [...] They are a prerequisite for obtaining a DMCA subpoena, which Sony Music Japan requested at a California federal court this week.

Sony requested two DMCA subpoenas, both targeted at hikarinoakari.com and hnadownloads.co. The latter domain receives the bulk of its traffic from the first, which isn't a surprise considering the 'hnadownloads' name. Through the subpoena, the music company hopes to obtain additional information on the people behind these sites. That includes, names, IP-addresses, and payment info. Presumably, this will be used for follow-up enforcement actions. It's unclear whether Cloudflare will be able to hand over any usable information and for the moment, HnA remains online. Several of the infringing URLs that were identified by Sony have recently been taken down, including this one. However, others remain readily available. The same applies to private forum threads and Discord postings, of course.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The US Supreme Court has issued a decision that could upend all federal cybersecurity regulations, moving ultimate regulatory approval to the courts and away from regulatory agencies. A host of likely lawsuits could gut the Biden administration's spate of cyber incident reporting requirements and other recent cyber regulatory actions. [...] While the Court's decision has the potential to weaken or substantially alter all federal agency cybersecurity requirements ever adopted, a series of cyber regulatory initiatives implemented over the past four years could become the particular focus of legal challenges. Parties who previously objected to these initiatives but were possibly reluctant to fight due to the Chevron deference will likely be encouraged to challenge these regulations.

Although all existing regulations are still in effect, the upshot for CISOs is almost certainly some degree of uncertainty as the legal challenges get underway. A host of conflicting decisions across the various judicial circuits in the US could lead to confusion in compliance programs until the smoke clears. CISOs should expect some court cases to water down or eliminate many existing cybersecurity regulatory requirements. A host of recently adopted cyber regulations will likely be challenged following the Court's ruling, but some recent regulations stand out as leading candidates for litigation. Among these are:

Brazil's national data protection authority ruled on Tuesday that Meta must stop using data originating in the country to train its artificial intelligence models. The Associated Press reports: Meta's updated privacy policy enables the company to feed people's public posts into its AI systems. That practice will not be permitted in Brazil, however. The decision stems from "the imminent risk of serious and irreparable or difficult-to-repair damage to the fundamental rights of the affected data subjects," the agency said in the nation's official gazette. [...] Hye Jung Han, a Brazil-based researcher for the rights group, said in an email Tuesday that the regulator's action "helps to protect children from worrying that their personal data, shared with friends and family on Meta's platforms, might be used to inflict harm back on them in ways that are impossible to anticipate or guard against."

But the decision regarding Meta will "very likely" encourage other companies to refrain from being transparent in the use of data in the future, said Ronaldo Lemos, of the Institute of Technology and Society of Rio de Janeiro, a think-tank. "Meta was severely punished for being the only one among the Big Tech companies to clearly and in advance notify in its privacy policy that it would use data from its platforms to train artificial intelligence," he said. Compliance must be demonstrated by the company within five working days from the notification of the decision, and the agency established a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,820) for failure to do so. In a statement, Meta said the company is "disappointed" by the decision and insists its method "complies with privacy laws and regulations in Brazil."

"This is a step backwards for innovation, competition in AI development and further delays bringing the benefits of AI to people in Brazil," a spokesperson for the company added.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law requiring age verification to access online pornography, which opponents argue violates the First Amendment by discouraging adults from viewing such material due to privacy concerns. A federal judge blocked the law citing its chilling effect on free speech, but a divided appeals court upheld it, emphasizing the government's interest in protecting minors; the case will now be reviewed by the Supreme Court. The Texas bill in question, HB 1181, was passed into law last June. The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear a challenge to a Texas law that seeks to limit minors' access to pornography on the internet by requiring age verification measures like the submission of government-issued IDs. A trade group, companies that produce sexual materials and a performer challenged the law, saying that it violates the First Amendment right of adults. The law does not allow companies to retain information their users submit. But the challengers said adults would be wary of supplying personal information for fear of identity theft, tracking and extortion. [...]

In urging the Supreme Court to leave the law in place while it considers whether to hear the case, Ken Paxton, Texas' attorney general, said pornography available on the internet is "orders of magnitude more graphic, violent and degrading than any so-called 'girlie' magazine of yesteryear." He added: "This statute does not prohibit the performance, production or even sale of pornography but, more modestly, simply requires the pornography industry that make billions of dollars from peddling smut to take commercially reasonable steps to ensure that those who access the material are adults. There is nothing unconstitutional about it."

"A federal grand jury has indicted an embattled Alzheimer's researcher for allegedly falsifying data to fraudulently obtain $16 million in federal research funding from the National Institutes of Health for the development of a controversial Alzheimer's drug and diagnostic test," writes Beth Mole via Ars Technica. "Wang is charged with one count of major fraud against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of false statements. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the major fraud charge, 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud, and five years in prison for the count of false statements [...]." From the report: Hoau-Yan Wang, 67, a medical professor at the City University of New York, was a paid collaborator with the Austin, Texas-based pharmaceutical company Cassava Sciences. Wang's research and publications provided scientific underpinnings for Cassava's Alzheimer's treatment, Simufilam, which is now in Phase III trials. Simufilam is a small-molecule drug that Cassava claims can restore the structure and function of a scaffolding protein in the brain of people with Alzheimer's, leading to slowed cognitive decline. But outside researchers have long expressed doubts and concerns about the research.

In 2023, Science magazine obtained a 50-page report from an internal investigation at CUNY that looked into 31 misconduct allegations made against Wang in 2021. According to the report, the investigating committee "found evidence highly suggestive of deliberate scientific misconduct by Wang for 14 of the 31 allegations," the report states. The allegations largely centered around doctored and fabricated images from Western blotting, an analytical technique used to separate and detect proteins. However, the committee couldn't conclusively prove the images were falsified "due to the failure of Dr. Wang to provide underlying, original data or research records and the low quality of the published images that had to be examined in their place." In all, the investigation "revealed long-standing and egregious misconduct in data management and record keeping by Dr. Wang," and concluded that "the integrity of Dr. Wang's work remains highly questionable." The committee also concluded that Cassava's lead scientist on its Alzheimer's disease program, Lindsay Burns, who was a frequent co-author with Wang, also likely bears some responsibility for the misconduct.

In March 2022, five of Wang's articles published in the journal PLOS One were retracted over integrity concerns with images in the papers. Other papers by Wang have also been retracted or had statements of concern attached to them. Further, in September 2022, the Food and Drug Administration conducted an inspection of the analytical work and techniques used by Wang to analyze blood and cerebrospinal fluid from patients in a simufilam trial. The investigation found a slew of egregious problems, which were laid out in a "damning" report (PDF) obtained by Science. In the indictment last week (PDF), federal authorities were explicit about the allegations, claiming that Wang falsified the results of his scientific research to NIH "by, among other things, manipulating data and images of Western blots to artificially add bands [which represent proteins], subtract bands, and change their relative thickness and/or darkness, and then drawing conclusions" based on those false results.

Keith Gill, the investor known as "Roaring Kitty" online, is being used by GameStop investors for helping spur the meme stock mania of 2021. The plaintiffs said they lost money through his "pump-and-dump" scheme, which led to a "short squeeze" that caused losses for hedge funds betting stock prices would fall. Reuters reports: A proposed class action accusing Gill of securities fraud was filed on Friday in the Brooklyn, New York federal court. Investors led by Martin Radev, who lives in the Las Vegas area, said Gill manipulated GameStop securities between May 13 and June 13 by quietly accumulating large quantities of stock and call options, and then dumping some holdings after emerging from a three-year social media hiatus. They said Gill's activities caused GameStop's share price to gyrate wildly, generating "millions of dollars" in profit for him at their expense. "Defendant still enjoys celebrity status and commands a following of millions through his social media accounts," the complaint said. "Accordingly, Defendant was well aware of his ability to manipulate the market for GameStop securities, as well as the benefits he could reap."

He had on May 12 posted a cryptic meme on the social media platform X that was widely seen as a bullish signal for GameStop, whose stock he cheerleaded in 2021. GameStop's share price more than tripled over the next two days, but gave back nearly all the gains by May 24. On June 2, Gill revealed that he owned 5 million GameStop shares and 120,000 call options, and on June 13 revealed he had shed the call options but owned 9 million GameStop shares. Investors said the truth about Gill's investing became known on June 3 when the Wall Street Journal wrote about the timing of his options trades and said the online brokerage E*Trade considered kicking him off its platform.

An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed written by Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022) and a visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs: Julian Assange's lengthy detention has finally ended, but the danger that his prosecution poses to the rights of journalists remains. As is widely known, the U.S. government's pursuit of Assange under the Espionage Act threatens to criminalize common journalistic practices. Sadly, Assange's guilty plea and release from custody have done nothing to ease that threat. That Assange was indicted under the Espionage Act, a U.S. law designed to punish spies and traitors, should not be considered the normal course of business. Barack Obama's justice department never charged Assange because it couldn't distinguish what he had done from ordinary journalism. The espionage charges were filed by the justice department of Donald Trump. Joe Biden could have reverted to the Obama position and withdrawn the charges but never did.

The 18-count indictment filed under Trump accused Assange of having solicited secret U.S. government information and encouraged Chelsea Manning to provide it. Manning committed a crime when she delivered that information because she was a government employee who had pledged to safeguard confidential information on pain of punishment. But Assange's alleged solicitation of that information, and the steps he was said to have taken to ensure that it could be transferred anonymously, are common procedure for many journalists who report on national security issues. If these practices were to be criminalized, our ability to monitor government conduct would be seriously compromised. To make matters worse, someone accused under the Espionage Act is not allowed to argue to a jury that disclosures were made in the public interest. The unauthorized disclosure of secret information deemed prejudicial to national security is sufficient for conviction regardless of motive.

To justify Espionage Act charges, the Trump-era prosecutors stressed that Assange was accused of not only soliciting and receiving secret government information but also agreeing to help crack a password that would provide access to U.S. government files. That is not ordinary journalistic behavior. An Espionage Act prosecution for computer hacking is very different from a prosecution for merely soliciting and receiving secret information. Even if it would not withdraw the Trump-era charges, Biden's justice department could have limited the harm to journalistic freedom by ensuring that the alleged computer hacking was at the center of Assange's guilty plea. In fact, it was nowhere to be found. The terms for the proceeding were outlined in a 23-page "plea agreement" filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, where Assange appeared by consent. Assange agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of violating the Espionage Act, but under U.S. law, it is not enough to plead in the abstract. A suspect must concede facts that would constitute an offense. "One effect of the guilty plea is that there will be no legal challenge to the prosecution, and hence no judicial decision on whether this use of the Espionage Act violates the freedom of the media as protected by the first amendment of the U.S. constitution," notes Roth. "That means that just as prosecutors overreached in the case of Assange, they could do so again."

"[M]edia protections are not limited to journalists who are deemed responsible. Nor do we want governments to make judgments about which journalists deserve First Amendment safeguards. That would quickly compromise media freedom for all journalists."

Roth concludes: "Imperfect journalist that he was, Assange should never have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act. It is unfortunate that the Biden administration didn't take available steps to mitigate that harm."

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, the parent of DVD rental operator Redbox, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after months of financial struggles and piling unpaid bills. The Associated Press reports: Chicken Soup for the Soul has accumulated nearly $1 billion in debt, the Chapter 11 filing submitted Friday in Delaware bankruptcy court shows, after reporting loss after loss over recent quarters. The filing also discloses that Chicken Soup for the Soul owes millions to over 500 creditors -- which range from big names in the entertainment world like Sony Pictures and Warner Bros, to major retailers like Walgreens and Walmart. As of March of this year, Friday's filing shows, Chicken Soup for the Soul had about $414 million in assets and $970 million in debts. Shares for the public company have fallen more than 90% over the last year. "Redbox, founded in 2002, is best known for red-colored, self-serve machines that sit outside of pharmacies or groceries stores to rent or sell DVDs," notes the report. It was acquired by Chicken Soup for the Soul in 2022. There are currently about 27,000 Redbox kiosks across the U.S. -- down from 36,000 at the Redbox acquisition was finalized in August 2022.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Meta continues to hit walls with its heavily scrutinized plan to comply with the European Union's strict online competition law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), by offering Facebook and Instagram subscriptions as an alternative for privacy-inclined users who want to opt out of ad targeting. Today, the European Commission (EC) announced preliminary findings that Meta's so-called "pay or consent" or "pay or OK" model -- which gives users a choice to either pay for access to its platforms or give consent to collect user data to target ads -- is not compliant with the DMA. According to the EC, Meta's advertising model violates the DMA in two ways. First, it "does not allow users to opt for a service that uses less of their personal data but is otherwise equivalent to the 'personalized ads-based service." And second, it "does not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data," the press release said.

Now, Meta will have a chance to review the EC's evidence and defend its policy, with today's findings kicking off a process that will take months. The EC's investigation is expected to conclude next March. Thierry Breton, the commissioner for the internal market, said in the press release that the preliminary findings represent "another important step" to ensure Meta's full compliance with the DMA. "The DMA is there to give back to the users the power to decide how their data is used and ensure innovative companies can compete on equal footing with tech giants on data access," Breton said. A Meta spokesperson told Ars that Meta plans to fight the findings -- which could trigger fines up to 10 percent of the company's worldwide turnover, as well as fines up to 20 percent for repeat infringement if Meta loses. The EC agreed that more talks were needed, writing in the press release, "the Commission continues its constructive engagement with Meta to identify a satisfactory path towards effective compliance." Meta continues to claim that its "subscription for no ads" model was "endorsed" by the highest court in Europe, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), last year.

"Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA," Meta's spokesperson said. "We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close."

Meta rolled out its ad-free subscription service option last November. "Depending on where you purchase it will cost $10.5/month on the web or $13.75/month on iOS and Android," said the company in a blog post. "Regardless of where you purchase, the subscription will apply to all linked Facebook and Instagram accounts in a user's Accounts Center. As is the case for many online subscriptions, the iOS and Android pricing take into account the fees that Apple and Google charge through respective purchasing policies."

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered lower courts to take another look at a pair of laws from Florida and Texas that imposed restrictions on how social media companies can moderate the content posted to their platforms. From a report: Justice Elena Kagan delivered the court's opinion, which tossed out lower court rulings and sent the two cases back for additional proceedings. The court said neither lower court conducted the proper analysis of the First Amendment challenges to the laws regulating major social media platforms.

"[T]he question in such a case is whether a law's unconstitutional applications are substantial compared to its constitutional ones. To make that judgment, a court must determine a law's full set of applications, evaluate which are constitutional and which are not, and compare the one to the other," Kagan wrote. "Neither court performed that necessary inquiry."

Today the Wall Street Journal reported that restoring net neutrality to America is "on shakier legal footing after a Supreme Court decision on Friday shifted power away from federal agencies." "It's hard to overstate the impact that this ruling could have on the regulatory landscape in the United States going forward," said Leah Malone, a lawyer at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. "This could really bind U.S. agencies in their efforts to write new rules." Now that [the "Chevron deference"] is gone, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to have a harder time reviving net neutrality — a set of policies barring internet-service providers from assigning priority to certain web traffic...

The Federal Communications Commission reclassified internet providers as public utilities under the Communications Act. There are pending court cases challenging the FCC's reinterpretation of that 1934 law, and the demise of Chevron deference heightens the odds of the agency losing in court, some legal experts said. "Chevron's thumb on the scale in favor of the agencies was crucial to their chances of success," said Geoffrey Manne, president of the International Center for Law and Economics. "Now that that's gone, their claims are significantly weaker."
Other federal agencies could also be affected, according to the article. The ruling could also make it harder for America's Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on power-plant pollution. And the Federal Trade Commission face more trouble in court defending its recent ban on noncompete agreements. Lawyer Daniel Jarcho tells the Journal that the Court's decision "will unquestionably lead to more litigation challenging federal agency actions, and more losses for federal agencies."

Friday a White House press secretary issued a statement calling the court's decision "deeply troubling," and arguing that the court had "decided in the favor of special interests".

Samantha Cole reports via 404 Media: A woman is suing Microsoft and two major U.S. sex toy retailers with claims that their websites are tracking users without their consent, despite promising they wouldn't do that. In a complaint (PDF) filed on June 25 in the Northern District of California, San Francisco resident Stella Tatola claims that Babeland and Good Vibrations -- both owned by Barnaby Ltd., LLC -- allowed Microsoft to see what visitors to their websites searched for and bought.

"Unbeknownst to Plaintiff and other Barnaby website users, and constituting the ultimate violation of privacy, Barnaby allows an undisclosed third-party, Microsoft, to intercept, read, and utilize for commercial gain consumers' private information about their sexual practices and preferences, gleaned from their activity on Barnaby's websites," the complaint states. "This information includes but is not limited to product searches and purchase initiations, as well as the consumer's unique Microsoft identifier." The complaint claims that Good Vibrations and Babeland sites have installed trackers using Microsoft's Clarity software, which does "recording in real time," and tracks users' mouse movements, clicks or taps, scrolls, and site navigation. Microsoft says on the Clarity site that it "processes a massive amount of anonymous data around user behavior to gain insights and improve machine learning models that power many of our products and services."

"By allowing undisclosed third party Microsoft to eavesdrop and intercept users' PPSI in such a manner -- including their sexual orientation, preferences, and desires, among other highly sensitive, protected information -- Barnaby violates its Privacy Policies, which state it will never share such information with third parties," the complaint states. The complaint includes screenshots of code from the sexual health sites that claims to show them using Machine Unique Identifier ("MUID") cookies that "identifies unique web browsers visiting Microsoft sites," according to Microsoft, and are used for "advertising, site analytics, and other operational purposes." The complaint claims that this violates the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the Federal Wiretap Act, and Californians' reasonable expectation of privacy.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Internet Archive (IA) went before a three-judge panel Friday to defend its open library's controlled digital lending (CDL) practices after book publishers last year won a lawsuit claiming that the archive's lending violated copyright law. In the weeks ahead of IA's efforts to appeal that ruling, IA was forced to remove 500,000 books from its collection, shocking users. In an open letter to publishers, more than 30,000 readers, researchers, and authors begged for access to the books to be restored in the open library, claiming the takedowns dealt "a serious blow to lower-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others," who may not have access to a local library or feel "safe accessing the information they need in public."

During a press briefing following arguments in court Friday, IA founder Brewster Kahle said that "those voices weren't being heard." Judges appeared primarily focused on understanding how IA's digital lending potentially hurts publishers' profits in the ebook licensing market, rather than on how publishers' costly ebook licensing potentially harms readers. However, lawyers representing IA -- Joseph C. Gratz, from the law firm Morrison Foerster, and Corynne McSherry, from the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation -- confirmed that judges were highly engaged by IA's defense. Arguments that were initially scheduled to last only 20 minutes stretched on instead for an hour and a half. Ultimately, judges decided not to rule from the bench, with a decision expected in the coming months or potentially next year. McSherry said the judges' engagement showed that the judges "get it" and won't make the decision without careful consideration of both sides.

"They understand this is an important decision," McSherry said. "They understand that there are real consequences here for real people. And they are taking their job very, very seriously. And I think that's the best that we can hope for, really." On the other side, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the trade organization behind the lawsuit, provided little insight into how the day went. When reached for comment, AAP simply said, "We thought it was a strong day in court, and we look forward to the opinion." [...] "There is no deadline for them to make a decision," Gratz said, but it "probably won't happen until early fall" at the earliest. After that, whichever side loses will have an opportunity to appeal the case, which has already stretched on for four years, to the Supreme Court. Since neither side seems prepared to back down, the Supreme Court eventually weighing in seems inevitable.