A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Feb. 1, 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.
Whitepages designed its terms of service “in an oppressive and unscrupulous manner” to avoid liability for its “ongoing scheme” to “deceive consumers,” alleged a complaint Friday (docket 2:24-cv-00121) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle. Plaintiff Rosa Lee Klaneski, of Farmington, Connecticut, entered into a contract with Whitepages “several years” prior to the complaint, under which she paid $4.99 monthly, now $5.99 per month, for a “premium membership” that enabled ad-free searches for individuals throughout the U.S., the complaint said. As part of her “personal lookups,” Whitepages sent unsolicited emails to her inbox informing her of additional data relevant to individuals she was searching, “or who were related somehow to the individuals she was searching," it said. One email she received said a social acquaintance of hers, known to have “only the highest of morals and scruples” now had a criminal record as part of her public record, the complaint said. Enticed by the subject line, “New Criminal Record Update,” Klaneski was solicited in the email to buy a background report revealing the advertised criminal record for $19.99, plus taxes and fees. Though the information was accurate, the “'new criminal record was actually a traffic citation from 2006” for illegal display of a handicapped plate in a parked vehicle, “a non-moving vehicular violation whose criminality and newness was suspect,” the complaint said. Klaneski sued Whitepages in her local Connecticut small claims court over “what she believed to be a garden variety dispute over the merchantability of virtual goods alleging unfair trade practices but not a federal question,” she said. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, saying what it called “new information” was new to its database. Such an answer “offends all notions of fair play,” said Klaneski, who alleged in her amended complaint in that action a violation of the Can-Spam Act. From April 20 to Nov. 23, Whitepages emailed Klaneski, “no fewer than 800 times” about new records, with only slight relevance and “suspect” connection to her, said the complaint. Whitepages sells “unmerchantable data through misleading spam emails and it avoids liability through an unconscionable terms of service that limits the redressability of grievances,” the complaint said. Klaneski 's claims include violation of the Can-Spam Act and Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, breach of contract, tortious interference with business expectancies and unjust enrichment. She seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive damages, pre-judgment interest, an order of restitution, injunctive relief and attorneys’ fees.
The Commerce Department announced the opportunity to request administrative reviews by Feb. 29 for producers and exporters subject to 43 antidumping duty orders and 15 countervailing duty orders with anniversary dates in February.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 31, 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.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission began five-year sunset reviews of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules from China (A-570-979/C-570-980); large diameter welded pipe from China (A-570-077/C-570-078), India (A-533-881/C-533-882), South Korea (A-580-897/C-580-898) and Turkey (A-489-833/C-489-834); and plastic decorative ribbons from China (A-570-075/C-570-076). It also will consider revoking the AD orders on large diameter welded pipe from Canada (A-122-863) and Greece (A-484-803), and on sodium hexametaphosphate from China (A-570-908), Commerce said in a notice released Jan. 31.
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).