U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon for Southern New York denied Roomster’s motions for dismissal, to stay discovery and for a protective order in a fraud case brought by the FTC and five states to thwart Roomster's proliferation of fake positive online reviews. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act doesn't shield Roomster from its alleged violations of federal and state consumer protection laws, said McMahon's decision and order Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-07389).

Kochava violates consumer protection laws by acquiring consumers' precise geolocation data and selling it “in a format that allows entities to track the consumers' movements to and from sensitive locations,” alleged King County, Washington, plaintiff Cindy Murphy in a class action Wednesday (docket 2:23-cv-00058) in U.S. District Court for Idaho. Her complaint bears strong similarities to the FTC’s Aug. 29 lawsuit in which the agency seeks a permanent injunction enjoining Kochava from acquiring the data (see 2212050061).

Plaintiff Cynthia Lepur fails to state a claim against student loan servicer Educational Credit Management Corp. (ECMC) "upon which relief can be granted," because her class action “violates the doctrines of claim splitting and claim preclusion,” said ECMC’s motion to dismiss Wednesday (docket 3:23-cv-00014) to U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. ECMC alternatively is seeking to strike Lepur’s class-action allegations.

The second known privacy class action in four days seeking to hold Apple accountable for its allegedly deceptive use of personal data from iPhones and other devices (see 2302010017) was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.

The 17 Samsung data breach class actions pending in various jurisdictions were transferred Wednesday to the U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Camden and consolidated under U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn, said a transfer order signed by Karen Caldwell, chair of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Chief Judge Renee Bumb in Camden signed an order consenting to the transfer and consolidation of the cases under the judge who, though praised by the panel as “a skilled jurist,” has no previous MDL experience.

T-Mobile “tried to downplay the value of what was stolen,” alleged the eighth federal privacy class action (4:23-cv-00438) arising from the carrier’s November data breach that it disclosed in a Jan. 19 8-K report (see 2301230046). T-Mobile believes the bad actor first retrieved data through a compromised application programming interface (API) around Nov. 25, but the company failed to detect the unauthorized activity until Jan. 5, the complaint noted.

T-Mobile will take California regulators to federal court over a decision to switch state USF contribution to a connections-based mechanism. In a complaint Wednesday against the California Public Utilities Commission (case 3:23-cv-00483), T-Mobile and subsidiaries urged the U.S. District Court of Northern California to preliminarily enjoin a $1.11 monthly per-line fee from taking effect April 1. A consumer advocate scoffed Thursday at T-Mobile’s claim that the order hurts low-income households.

Cloud server company Hyperlync Technologies sued T-Mobile Tuesday for breach of contract and quantum meruit. It alleged in a class action (docket 2:23-cv-00734) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles that the carrier failed to honor agreements it had with Sprint before T-Mobile's Sprint buy closed in April 2020.

Securus failed to show that California’s interim cap on incarcerated person calling services (IPCS) intrastate rates must be set aside, the 2nd District California Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. The court affirmed the California Public Utilities Commission’s 2021 decision to provide interim relief by capping the rate at 7 cents per minute and banning ancillary fees.

State Farm seeks a stay in discovery or phased discovery until U.S. District Judge John Kness for Northern Illinois in Chicago rules on its motion to dismiss plaintiff Thomas Gebka’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action (see 2301090024), said its memorandum Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-05546).