NetChoice is seeking a preliminary injunction blocking Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) from enforcing the Utah Social Media Regulation Act against NetChoice members when the statute takes effect March 1 (see 2312180054), said its Dec. 20 memorandum (docket 2:23-cv-00911) in U.S. District Court for Utah in Salt Lake City.

The government’s U.S. Supreme Court petition to defeat the injunction barring federal officials from coercing social media platforms to moderate their content “raises critical questions about how far the government can go in attempting to influence the actions of private social media companies that are deciding "what speech to disseminate,” said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an amicus brief Friday (docket 23-411) in Murthy v. Missouri.

Government “co-option” of the content moderation systems of social media companies “is a serious threat to freedom of speech,” especially for social media users “with no say in whether their speech is silenced,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology in a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief Thursday (docket 23-411) in Murthy v. Missouri. The brief is in support of neither the plaintiffs seeking to impose a social media content moderation injunction on federal officials, nor the government seeking to defeat it.

For nearly four decades, Chevron deference has provided a stable background rule against which Congress can legislate, said a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief Thursday in Relentless v. Commerce Department (docket 22-1219) in support of the government’s efforts to preserve Chevron. The brief was filed by two Emory University School of Law student organizations -- the Emory Intellectual Property Society and the Law and Artificial Intelligence Society.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act allows the states to write and enforce their own kids’ privacy laws, separate and apart from COPPA, so long as those laws aren’t "inconsistent" with the federal statute, said FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya in a 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court amicus brief Wednesday (docket 23-2969) in support of California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s(D) appeal to reverse the district court’s injunction that blocks him from enforcing AB-2273, the state’s Age Appropriate Design Code (see 2312140003).

Comcast’s representations of strong and robust security “have proved false and misleading” because it “admittedly failed to safeguard” the sensitive personal identifying information (PII) of millions of its consumers “or implement robust security measures to prevent this information from being stolen,” alleged California resident Steven Prescott’s eight-count class action Tuesday (docket 2:23-cv-05040) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

SiriusXM sells subscriptions “that are easy to purchase" but "extremely difficult to cancel,” with a number of tricks designed to dissuade consumers from carrying through with their cancellations, alleged New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in a five-count fraud complaint Wednesday in New York County Supreme Court. SiriusXM immediately called James' allegations "baseless."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the AGs of 18 other states support the appeal by six Chrome users to reverse the district court’s dismissal of their privacy complaint alleging that Chrome secretly sent users’ personal information to Google (see 2312130029), said the AGs’ amicus brief Monday (docket 22-16993) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 5th Circuit’s Oct. 3 decision affirming the injunction barring officials from the White House and four federal agencies from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to moderate their content (see 2310040001) “is flawed three times over,” said the government’s opening brief on the merits Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court in Murthy v. State of Missouri (docket 23-411). The injunction is stayed pending completion of the SCOTUS review (see 2310230003).

AT&T seeks equitable relief, declaratory judgment and expedited review challenging the “unlawful denial” by Jennings, Louisiana, of AT&T’s application to build an 80-foot wireless telecommunications facility within the city’s jurisdiction, said its complaint Monday (docket 2:23-cv-01769) in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Lake Charles. AT&T has sought for “several years” to build a wireless facility in Jennings, located about 40 miles east of Lake Charles, said the complaint. But the city “has consistently frustrated these efforts” by refusing to issue the approvals and permits necessary to develop the facility, even though AT&T is entitled to develop the facility under the city’s ordinances, it said. The complaint names Phillip Arceneaux, in his official capacity as city inspector, as a co-defendant with Jennings. The complaint marks the second time the parties have been before the court as a result of the city’s violation of Section 332 of the Telecommunications Act, said the lawsuit. The court in the first lawsuit granted AT&T summary judgment on Sept. 22, finding that the city violated the TCA “by failing to resolve AT&T’s applications,” it said. The court ordered the city to “render a decision” on AT&T’s applications by Nov. 21, it said. Jennings complied with the order when it denied the applications on Nov. 14 and when it provided a written denial a week later, said the complaint. But in so doing, the city again violated the TCA, it said. The denial was unlawful under the TCA because it wasn’t supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record, it said. It also effectively prohibited AT&T from offering wireless services in the city, and it discriminated against AT&T, “relative to other providers of wireless service,” it said. As a result of the city’s “willful thwarting” of the congressional goal of rapidly developing telecommunications facilities, AT&T has “no choice but to again file suit” to require Jennings to permit the building of a new wireless facility, said the complaint. AT&T needs the facility to fill a “significant gap” in its wireless network coverage in and around the city, it said. AT&T “is entitled to an order” directing Jennings to grant its application, it said.