Google’s “global arguments” for dismissal of Mary Smith’s fraud complaint involving Google Analytics' tracking pixel on tax-filing websites “lack merit,” said her response Monday to Google’s motion to dismiss her class action, part of an Oct. 9 consolidated complaint, in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose (docket 5:23-cv-03527). Google argues that because privacy policies on H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer disclosed the use of Google Analytics, plaintiffs consented to the disclosure of their tax-filing information to the defendant, said the response. “In Google’s view, these privacy policies are ‘judicially noticeable’ and therefore establish consent as a matter of law,” the response said, but the court “should reject Google’s position and its request for judicial notice” of the policies, which aren’t referenced in the complaint. Google submitted no evidence that any of the plaintiffs saw and agreed to the documents relied on by Google to support any consent, said the response: “Google must show that Plaintiffs took ‘affirmative action to demonstrate assent,’ but it has not done so,” it said. The privacy policies referenced are dated either January 2023 or October 2023, but plaintiffs allege their financial information was disclosed “years before those dates,” said the response. Google asks the court to “draw inferences in its favor” from “random versions” of the privacy policies, and it also “recycles an argument already rejected in similar cases involving the Meta tracking pixel,” it said, citing Gershzon v. Meta Platforms and In re Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation. U.S. District Judge for Northern California Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers also rejected that argument a few months ago in Brown v. Google, it said. In Smith’s case, Google’s argument similarly lacks merit because “it contradicts the pleadings and requires drawing inferences in Google’s favor,” and the privacy policies Google cites didn’t disclose the sharing of “tax-filing or other confidential financial information,” it said. Smith alleges Google Analytics’ tracking pixel, embedded in the JavaScript of online tax preparation websites, sent “massive amounts” of private tax return information such as income, refund amounts, filing status and scholarship information to Google, without taxpayers’ consent, “to improve its ad business and other business tools,” in violation of California’s Invasion of Privacy Act and the Federal Wiretap Act.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 30, 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.
InMarket Media tracks consumers’ precise geolocation data through its InMarket SDK “spyware” and profits from it by selling the data to third parties, alleged a privacy complaint Friday (docket 4:24-cv-00511) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 29, 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.
Google urged a state court to reject Ohio’s “meritless attempt to regulate Google’s ability to determine how best to select and present search results to consumers,” said Google's summary judgment motion Friday at the Ohio Court of Common Pleas, Delaware County (case 21 CV H 06 0274). The state argues that it can regulate Google as a common carrier under Ohio law. “The common law doctrine of ‘common carriage’ does not fit Google Search for many reasons, and such a designation would be contrary to federal law and constitutionally flawed,” wrote Google. Search doesn’t involve transportation or carriage, it said. Users, websites and other information sources on search results pages don’t “hire Google Search to ‘carry’ or ‘transport’ anything,” said the tech giant: Since Google uses “discretion and judgment” to create its results pages, “there is nothing ‘indiscriminate’ or ‘indifferent’ about the process Google uses to create Google search results.” Plus, the federal government doesn’t allow regulation of information services like Google, it said. “The common law claim of common carriage is incongruous” with any antitrust concerns the state may have, Google added. Also, common carrier regulation would interfere with Google’s editorial judgment, which is protected by the First Amendment, it said. Ohio also filed a summary judgment motion Friday, but it was sealed. Trial is set for Sept. 3 under the court’s schedule, as amended May 4. Opposition briefs are due Feb. 23 and reply briefs are due March 15. Judge James Schuck refused to dismiss Ohio’s lawsuit in May 2022, ruling that Ohio “stated a cognizable claim” that Google could be a common carrier (see 2205260057).
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 26, 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.
U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig for Eastern Wisconsin granted the motion of Milwaukee’s Deer District to intervene to prevent Verizon's installation of small cells and mounting poles for July’s Republican National Convention in the public pedestrian plaza the district controls outside the Fiserv Forum (see 2401230017), said his signed order Wednesday (docket 2:23-cv-01581).
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 25, 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.
Plaintiffs Justin Davis and Gary Davis again failed to adequately plead their claims in a fraud class action over allegedly defective laptop trackpads, said HP’s reply brief (docket 4:23-cv-02114) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland in support of its motion to dismiss the Davis’ first amended complaint (see 2307030008). The plaintiffs allege that defective trackpads in their HP Omen laptops rendered their computers completely unusable without an external mouse. Plaintiffs again didn’t allege specific facts that would “plausibly support” Article III or statutory standing “or rectify the other myriad shortcomings of their original Complaint,” the reply said. The plaintiffs added only “a handful of new allegations, none of which cure the standing, Rule 9(b), or other deficiencies of their original pleading,” said the brief. Plaintiffs only “pay lip service” to the court’s direction that their amended complaint must identify the “who, what, when, where and how of the misconduct charged,” said the brief. “Instead, they argue that Rule 9(b) effectively requires notice pleading, such that HP need only be provided the barest information necessary to 'defend against the charge that they [sic] induced consumers to believe the Products were functional laptop computers,'” it said.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 24, 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.