The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a junk fax class-action lawsuit, seeking damages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. A concurring option examines the FCC's pretext language from 2003.

U.S. District Court Judge Amos Mazzant for Eastern Texas in Sherman denied AT&T’s Sept. 6 application for a preliminary injunction to stop T-Mobile’s allegedly false BannedSeniors.com ad and marketing campaign. The memorandum opinion and order the judge signed Wednesday (docket 4:22-cv-00760) came five days after he denied T-Mobile’s motion to dismiss AT&T’s application (see 2301170040).

The FCC retaliated against Blanca Telephone two days after the ILEC filed its petition for cert at the Supreme Court to enforce the 10th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s May 2021 mandate directing the agency to collect an old USF debt only through “nonpunitive administrative offset” means. So said Blanca in a supplement to that petition dated Jan. 16 and posted Wednesday (docket 22-645).

Despite Apple’s promotion of its privacy policies, its practice of harvesting data from iPhones and other Apple devices “vacuums up a lot of data about consumers without permission,” alleges a Tuesday class action (docket 1:23-cv-411) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.

U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz for Southern Florida in Miami should follow “the legion of case law” in the 11th Circuit and dismiss all counts in plaintiff Christa Simmons’ class action alleging Procter & Gamble violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act. So asserted P&G in a memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 0:22-cv-61956) in support of its motion to dismiss.

Plaintiff Cynthia Redd’s class action “seeks to expand” the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act “far beyond what its authors could have possibly intended,” said Amazon Web Services Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago in its motion to dismiss (docket 1:22-cv-06779) Redd’s complaint for failure to state a claim.

A Supreme Court ruling in Gonzalez v. Google that an internet platform can be liable for the content it recommends (see 2301130028) would increase the cost and prevalence of content moderation, chill speech, step on congressional authority and ignore other routes for curbing abuses by tech companies, said amicus briefs supporting Google (docket 21-1333) this week . Public Knowledge, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology and others weighed in on the case.

Contrary to ResortCom’s “posturing,” the defendant in Marriott’s trademark infringement lawsuit to thwart Marriott telemarketing impersonators has been aware of its clients’ unauthorized use of the hotel trademark for years, said Marriott’s opposition Tuesday (docket 1:21-cv-00610) to ResortCom’s motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia.

Challenges to the FCC’s USF program filed in three federal circuits by Consumers Research raise larger questions about the nondelegation doctrine and how the FCC interprets Section 254 of the Communications Act, lawyers said during an FCBA hybrid event Wednesday. The case could be headed to the Supreme Court, they said.

A “reasonable consumer” understands that when buying something, “they own it unless or until they return it or otherwise dispose of it” but not so with content purchased from Amazon Prime Video. So asserted eight California and New York plaintiffs in their opposition Friday (docket 2:22-cv-00401) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle to Amazon’s motion to dismiss their class action for failure to state a claim.