Three trackers collect Buzzfeed consumers’ IP addresses when they visit the entertainment website, without their consent, alleged a privacy class action Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-02753) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website April 12, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
Sunrun, a company that promotes and sells solar energy systems, placed numerous unwanted calls to Bradley Hofvander’s cellphone, “some or all of which deployed a prerecorded or computer-generated voice, invading his privacy and causing the loss of time and effort,” alleged Hofvander's Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint Monday (docket 1:24-cv-02798) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. The TCPA “affords special protections against harassing people with prerecorded or computer-generated voice messages," the complaint said. Hofvander, a resident of Des Plaines, Illinois, listed his cellphone number on the national do not call registry more than 20 years ago, yet Sunrun “bombarded” him with at least 100 calls touting its products, it said. The plaintiff received 40 such calls since Jan. 16, despite attempts to block them, it added. In many cases, the caller left a voicemail message, it said. “The content of the calls and the voice used is identical, inconsistent with a human caller,” said the complaint. Sunrun’s conduct harassed Hofvander and wasted his time, “in that he had to devote energy to answering, addressing and/or otherwise responding to numerous unwanted calls,” it said.
A combined joint status report and discovery plan under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f) is due May 13 in the March 19 breach of contract class action 10 plaintiffs brought against Amazon over the $2.99 Prime Video add-on fee it implemented in January (see 2403200047), said an order signed Monday (docket 2:24-cv-00364) by U.S. District Judge John Chun for Western Washington in Seattle. The report will help determine if a Rule 16 conference would be useful. In addition, it will help set a schedule for the prompt completion of the case, said Chun’s order. The plaintiffs allege that Amazon has offered Prime Video with commercial-free viewing as a benefit of its Prime membership since 2011. It began running ads on Prime Video in January and, in connection with that change, required subscribers who wanted to avoid commercials to pay a $2.99 fee. The plaintiffs allege that Amazon’s actions violate the Washington Consumer Protection Act and the unfair and deceptive acts and practices statutes “of virtually every other state in the country.”
The Commerce Department has published the preliminary results of its antidumping and countervailing duty administrative reviews on certain new pneumatic off-the-road tires from India (A-533-869/C-533-870). In the final results of this review, Commerce will set AD assessment rates for subject merchandise for the companies under review entered March 1, 2022, through Feb. 28, 2023, and CVD assessment rates for entries Jan. 1, 2022, through Dec. 31, 2022.
Amazon doesn’t oppose consolidating Barbara Trevino’s fraud case against it with Marcos Ramos' negative reviews case; however, the company denies her claim that it stiffled consumers’ right to free speech, its response said Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-00240) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. The response was made to Trevino's motion for consolidation of actions. Amazon also disagrees with Trevino’s characterization of the claims and issues in her case and the Ramos action as important or “complex.” Trevino’s claims don’t raise “important, complicated, or complex issues” but reflect the “obvious cut-and-paste job of Plaintiff’s counsel and counsel for the plaintiffs in Ramos, who have filed a bevy of similar actions across California asserting meritless claims against a host of companies by taking their standard online terms out of context, contorting, and otherwise misconstruing them,” the response said. Trevino alleges Amazon “changed the deal” on its Prime Video offering by charging consumers an additional $2.99 a month for ad-free streaming, a feature that earlier was part of a Prime membership (see 2403070012). Ramos plaintiffs allege that the conditions of use that Amazon imposes on consumers to use or shop its platforms prohibit them from mentioning Amazon or its brand names in any manner that “disparages or discredits” the company (see 2401050050). Trevino’s “baseless claims against Amazon … rest on a warped and illogical reading of standard online terms protecting Amazon’s IP rights -- terms that have nothing to do with the speech concerns implicated by California’s Yelp Law,” said the response. The e-commerce giant “looks forward to briefing these issues” to the court in its forthcoming motion to dismiss.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website April 5, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
Lightfoot Media and Power House Marketing acted in good faith and "had reasonable grounds for believing" their actions were in compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, including by implementing procedures to prevent violations and by maintaining an internal do not call list, said their answer Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-15983) ) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago to Kyle Roseboro’s March 15 first amended complaint. Roseboro alleges that Lightfoot and Power House, both lead generation businesses, “routinely violate” the TCPA by delivering ad or marketing text messages to residential or cellphone numbers listed with the national do not call registry without the prior express invitation or permission of the recipients. But Roseboro’s claims are barred because he provided prior express written permission to receive the communications at issue in the complaint, said the defendants’ answer. Roseboro and the purported class members also didn’t follow “proper procedures or channels to revoke their consent,” so their revocation of consent wasn’t “properly executed,” it said.
Cherry Technologies, a payment plan company for managing dental patients’ out-of-pocket costs, “specifically denies” any Telephone Consumer Protection Act wrongdoing, said its answer Monday (docket 9:24-cv-80005) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in West Palm Beach to Kawa Orthodontics’ Jan. 3 class action (see 2401040001). Kawa alleges Cherry sent it and at least 40 other recipients unsolicited fax ads in mid-December trumpeting how patients could take advantage of unused dental benefits expiring at the end of the year. The faxes used “a generic advertising template suitable for mass transmission to numerous recipients,” said the complaint. But Kawa and the putative class members are barred from asserting claims in whole or in part to the extent that the faxes at issue were sent to an online fax service, virtual fax or efax and not to a physical fax machine, said Cherry’s answer. Any claim for treble damages under the TCPA is barred because Cherry didn’t engage in knowing or willful misconduct, it said. Kawa and the putative class members lack standing to bring the claims alleged in the complaint because they didn’t suffer “a concrete harm that is fairly traceable to a violation” allegedly committed by Cherry, it said. The TCPA and the regulations and rules promulgated under it violate the First Amendment, “including by imposing content-based restrictions on speech that fail to withstand strict scrutiny,” it said. To the extent Kawa contends that the TCPA restricts informational communications, its interpretation of the TCPA also violates the First Amendment, it said.
Three tracking pixels on the Reuters website collect visitors' IP addresses in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, alleged a class action Monday (docket 1:24-cv-02466) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.