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Facebook will pay content moderators $52 million in PTSD settlement
Each of the 11,250 plaintiffs will receive at least $1,000.
Self-driving startup Zoox settles with Tesla over trade secret theft
Zoox acknowledged that some new hires brought Tesla documents with them.
California ends opposition to T-Mobile and Sprint merger
New York isn't the only big state dropping its fight against T-Mobile's merger with Sprint. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has dropped the state's challenge against the merger after reaching a settlement that theoretically addresses objections to the carrier buyout. The expanded T-Mobile will have to guarantee affordable plans in California for a minimum of five years, including a plan with 2GB of data for $25 per month. The network will also have to hold to plans from February 2019 for five years (two year longer than the FCC asked for) and give 10 million low-income households access to 100GB of free broadband per year, including a free mobile hotspot.
Facebook says it will tighten account security following 2018 hack
Facebook is promising to bolster its security processes in the wake of a 2018 hack that exposed data for 29 million users. The social network has proposed a settlement in a lawsuit over the breach that would see the company check more often for suspicious activity around the digital access tokens that let people use their accounts. There are other measures as part of the lawsuit, Bloomberg said.
Facebook settles lawsuit over its use facial recognition for $550 million
After years of wrangling in courts, Facebook has settled a lawsuit over its use of facial recognition. Last year it agreed to stop turning on the tech to scan photos by default, which built a template of your facial data, and automatically suggested tags in photos based on it. During an earnings call on Wednesday afternoon to announce that Q4 profits grew to $7.3 billion giving it a profit of over $18 billion for 2019, CFO David Wehner gave a one-line mention to the fact that they have a settlement in principle to pay $550 million to resolve the suit. Plaintiffs sued based on the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, arguing that its service did not receive "explicit consent" from users before collecting their data. Asked about the settlement, a spokesperson responded "We decided to pursue a settlement as it was in the best interest of our community and our shareholders to move past this matter." ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler pointed to the result as an example of what other states should do, saying "this case is a great example of how states can take the lead to protect their residents' privacy rights despite Congress' failure to do the same." According to one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, Jay Edelson, "Biometrics is one of the two primary battlegrounds, along with geolocation, that will define our privacy rights for the next generation. We are proud of the strong team we had in place that had the resolve to fight this critically important case over the last five years. We hope and expect that other companies will follow Facebook's lead and pay significant attention to the importance of our biometric information." The settlement will still need to be approved by a judge.
California says Riot Games' discrimination settlement isn't enough
Riot Games' tentative $10 million settlement over gender discrimination claims might be revised much higher. The LA Times has learned that California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) and the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) have requested to get involved the case and argue that the settlement terms are inadequate. DFEH contended that women at the League of Legends studio could be owed "over $400 million" in back pay based on the settlement's existing calculations, and that the non-financial agreements included "no enforceable changes" in policy at a company where sexism was reportedly widespread.
Ericsson will pay over $1 billion to settle US corruption charges
Tech companies have been caught in corruption scandals before, but seldom on this scale. Telecom giant Ericsson has settled with the US Justice Department and SEC for just under $1.1 billion over charges of extensive corruption in several countries, including China, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. The company had been accused of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act between 2000 and 2016 by bribing officials to land customers, falsifying its records and failing to use "reasonable" accounting controls. The SEC, meanwhile, charged Ericsson with bribery that took place between 2011 and 2017.
Texas backs out of the lawsuit to stop the T-Mobile and Sprint merger
Texas no longer stands in the way of the T-Mobile and Sprint merger. The state has reached a settlement with T-Mobile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced today. In exchange for T-Mobile's commitment to build a 5G network throughout Texas, Paxton will drop the lawsuit he filed in August in an attempt to block the $26.5 billion deal.
Redbox will stop selling Disney movie codes as part of settlement
Disney's lawsuit against Redbox is over, and it's not great news for Redbox. The two sides have agreed to a settlement that will have Redbox stop the sale of movie download codes from Disney disc packs. Attorneys for Disney had accused Redbox of violating copyright by offering the codes separately from the discs that went into rental kiosks. Redbox had accused Disney of anti-competitive behavior and succeeded in thwarting a preliminary injunction that would have blocked sales, but its defense fell apart after Disney reworked the disc packs' terms to make code access contingent on how you bought the movies rather than physical ownership.
The legal battle over 3D-printed guns is far from over
Last year, Defense Distributed won a legal battle, which allowed it to continue uploading and sharing blueprints for 3D-printed guns. The decision was immediately criticized by states and gun-reform advocates. Now, a US District Judge has overturned the ruling. Once again, it is illegal to publish blueprints for 3D-printed guns online.
Woody Allen settles lawsuit against Amazon over dropped movie deal
Woody Allen has ended his fight with Amazon over a dropped four-movie deal. The two sides have settled the dispute and dismissed Allen's lawsuit against Amazon in a joint notice on the night of November 8th. The terms of the settlement weren't mentioned, so it's unclear if money traded hands. However, the nature of Amazon's decision makes it unlikely that you'll see Allen releasing movies on Prime Video.
Uber may have to pay Waymo or redesign its self-driving software
In 2017, Waymo accused Uber of stealing its autonomous driving trade secrets. You may have thought the Uber-Waymo legal battle was over when, in 2018, the companies reached a settlement and Uber agreed to pay around $245 million. But as part of the settlement, the parties brought in an independent software expert to review Uber's software and make sure it didn't misappropriate Waymo's intellectual property. Now, the review is complete, and Uber admits that the findings are not good.
Tesla and Walmart settle lawsuit over solar panel fires
Tesla and Walmart clearly weren't ready for a knock-down-drag-out fight over solar panel fires. The two companies have settled a lawsuit that accused Tesla of neglecting and botching installations for solar panels that caught fire on the roofs of seven Walmart stores. In a joint statement to Engadget, the companies said they were "pleased" and that concerns had been "addressed." The duo looks forward to a "safe re-energization of [their] sustainable energy systems," according to the companies. You can read the full statement below.
Internet metrics giant settles charges it faked its own numbers
The online ad world (among others) thrives on metrics to gauge how well its campaigns are working, but what happens when the company providing that data is cooking its own books? The industry is grappling with that issue today. Comscore and its former CEO Serge Matta have settled SEC charges they committed fraud to artificially inflate revenue by $50 million and otherwise inflate their metrics between 2014 and 2016. Reportedly, Matta had Comscore join "non-monetary transactions" where it would exchange data without expecting money, but recognized revenue on that data based on an inflated sense of its value -- and lied to both accountants and auditors about it. That, in turn, made it look like Comscore was growing at an unrealistic pace.
These engineers and tech execs want to create a peaceful lunar settlement
A group of Silicon Valley tech executives and engineers want to create a peaceful, multinational lunar settlement. According to Bloomberg, the San Francisco-based Open Lunar Foundation plans to invest in hardware "to accelerate the exploration and settlement of the moon." And it's committed to creating a kind of cooperative that wouldn't be tied to one particular country or billionaire.
Google to settle YouTube child privacy violations for up to $200 million
Google will allegedly pay between $150 and $200 million to end the FTC investigation into whether YouTube violated a children's privacy law, Politico reported this afternoon. The FTC reportedly voted along party lines (3-2) to approve the settlement, which will now be reviewed by the Justice Department.
Google Pixel owners can claim up to $500 in class action settlement
Google's settlement over faulty Pixel microphones has largely cleared the gauntlet, and it's now time to make a claim -- though how much you'll get depends on how well you qualify. The tech giant is offering up to $20 to any US resident who bought a Pixel or Pixel XL made before January 4th, 2017 and didn't receive a replacement made after January 3rd of that year (or refurbished after June 5th). That's true whether or not you suffered from the mic flaw. To get any more, though, you'll have to put in more effort.
FTC warns Equifax claimants will get 'nowhere near' $125 cash payout
When the FTC and other government agencies reached a settlement deal with Equifax over its massive data breach, people affected were offered as much as $125 in cash. Now, the FTC is encouraging claimants to choose the free credit monitoring option instead, because there's absolutely no way everyone is getting $125. Apparently, the money earmarked for cash payments is only $31 million -- a tiny fraction of the $700 million settlement all the parties agreed on.
Facebook to pay separate $100 million SEC fine over Cambridge Analytica scandal
Facebook isn't just settling with the FTC over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The social network has also agreed to pay the US Securities and Exchange Commission $100 million over charges of making "misleading disclosures" over the risk of abusing users' data. The SEC alleged that Facebook knew about the data breach in 2015, but continued to describe possible data breaches to investors in purely "hypothetical" terms. It also didn't have "specific policies or procedures" in effect to make accurate disclosures in light of the results of the investigation.
FTC to accuse Facebook of misusing phone numbers and facial recognition
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reportedly plans to issue a complaint over Facebook's handling of phone numbers and facial recognition. According to The Washington Post, the FTC plans to allege that advertisers managed to target users who provided their phone numbers for Facebook's two-factor authentication security feature. Sources also told The Washington Post that the FTC will accuse Facebook of providing insufficient information about the ability to turn off the facial recognition tool that offers photo tag suggestions.
