Google, Microsoft and Yahoo aren’t liable for hosting content posted by known scammers, a key appellate court ruled Friday. Citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided (in Pacer) with the platforms over a group of 14 locksmiths. The group’s lawsuit claimed the platforms flood search engine results with listings from unlicensed locksmiths to incentivize legitimate locksmiths to pay for preferred listing placement. The platforms aren’t content providers because the information they’re hosting is provided entirely by third parties, the court said, and Section 230 protects computer services from liability. The court is incorrect that the platforms aren’t responsible for the content because they verify scammer locations, said Baldino's Lock & Key’s Mark Baldino. The platforms didn't comment.

Congress was clear in its intent when it enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and courts ignoring that, as well as the abusive practices it was trying to prevent, would be "dispiriting beyond belief," the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday. It upheld a $61 million class-action TCPA verdict against Dish Network. The docket 18-1518 order rejected Dish arguments challenging the class certification and Dish liability for improper calls placed by a telemarketing firm it hired, Satellite Systems Network. The decision by Circuit Judges Harvie Wilkinson and Robert King and U.S. District Judge Irene Berger sitting by designation was written by Wilkinson. Dish didn't comment Friday.

A California man who bought 40 Apple shares in November for roughly $8,200 seeks class-action status in a securities-fraud complaint that alleges the iPhone maker duped investors about its poor revenue performance in 2018's holiday quarter and caused the stock to tank when the deception was revealed in early January. Priyam Reddy bought 20 Apple shares Nov. 2 at $210.82 a share and another 20 shares three days later at $200.96, said the complaint (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. He was among a class of shareholders similarly harmed when CEO Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri “engaged in a scheme to deceive the market and a course of conduct that artificially inflated the price” of the stock, it said. Apple “shocked the market” when Cook disclosed in a Jan. 2 shareholder letter that the company would miss its holiday-quarter revenue target by up to $9 billion, it said. “This news caused the market price of Apple common stock to plunge” the next trading day to the 52-week low of $142.19 a share, said the complaint, the second such lawsuit filed against Apple in as many months (see 1904170016). Reddy and other potential class members “have suffered significant losses and damages” as the result of “Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of Apple’s securities,” it said. Apple didn’t comment. The stock since recovered to a high of $211.75 on May 3.Shares closed up 1.2 percent Wednesday at $190.92.

Consumers can sue Apple for using its alleged App Store monopoly to drive up app prices (see 1811260039), the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday. Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with four liberal justices, writing an opinion allowing a class action lawsuit to proceed in Apple v. Robert Pepper, docket 17-204. Protecting consumers from monopoly prices is “the central concern of antitrust,” under the Sherman Act, Kavanaugh wrote. “The consumers here purchased apps directly from Apple, and they allege that Apple used its monopoly power over the retail apps market to charge higher-than-competitive prices.” Apple, with the backing of the Trump administration and various industry groups, argued that pass-through harm can lead to duplicative damages in conflict with Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois. Apple suggested only app developers should have the right to sue. Illinois Brick “does not bar the consumers from suing Apple for Apple’s allegedly monopolistic conduct,” Kavanaugh wrote. Consumers bought apps from third-party app developers at prices set by developers, Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented. The issue is that the 30 percent commission Apple charges developers falls initially on the developers, Gorsuch wrote. “So if the commission is in fact a monopolistic overcharge, the developers are the parties who are directly injured by it.” This is the pass-on theory Illinois rejected, he continued. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined the dissent. Monday’s decision “puts multi-sided business models at risk of expensive, duplicate claims,” Computer & Communications Industry Association CEO Ed Black said.

Best Buy’s private-label Insignia smart TVs infringe an 11-year-old patent in how they enable owners to use discovery and launch (DIAL) technology to “cast” content to an Insignia set from a smartphone, alleged a complaint Tuesday (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Plaintiff Cassiopeia IP owns all “rights of recovery” to U.S. patent 7,322,046 and “is entitled to a monetary judgment in an amount adequate to compensate” it for Best Buy’s infringement, it said. The patent was originally assigned to Siemens in January 2008, Patent and Trademark Office records show. It describes a method for secure use of a network service using a “blackboard on which all usable services are entered,” said the complaint. A blackboard is a software or hardware “component” that stores all available devices and applications a user “can cast to,” it said. The technology embedded in the patent improved network services “at the time of the invention by providing a secure way” to use them, it said. The Insignia TVs perform seven steps of DIAL functionality, all in “direct infringement” of the patent, it said. Best Buy didn’t comment Wednesday.

Cable installation companies Cable Line and McLaughlin Communications never showed what authority the court has to extend antitrust liability to cover a purchaser with market power in a vaguely defined market opting to reduce its supplier base, and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' role "is not to imagine that extension for them," a three-judge panel ruled Friday. In the decision affirming a lower court's dismissal of an antitrust and discrimination complaint against Comcast, the 3rd Circuit also said the appellants didn't present arguments and authority to support their claims Comcast chose a rival cable installation company because it's black owned. Judges Thomas Ambro, Felipe Restrepo and Morton Greenberg filed the docket 18-2316 opinion, which Ambro penned. Appellants' outside counsel told us Monday there are no further appeals to be had since it's a non-precedential decision, and said both installation companies have gone out of business due to Comcast's consolidating its supplier base.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a Laguna Hills, California, man last week on federal charges he ran a scheme that smuggled $72 million worth of counterfeit Apple and Samsung smartphone parts from China for sale online in the U.S., said the agency Thursday. Chan Hung Le, 44, faces up to 45 years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to traffic in counterfeit goods, among other charges, said ICE. Le, through a company he owns in Irvine, California, called EZ Elektronix, smuggled counterfeit iPhone and Galaxy components and used “various tactics” to avoid detection by U.S., Hong Kong and Chinese customs authorities, it said. ICE alleges Le tried to conceal the scheme by using multiple business names and addresses, plus “virtual offices” and post office boxes, in at least three states. Once the counterfeit products arrived, Le “distributed the parts to the public through various online stores that falsely claimed the parts were genuine,” it said. Attempts to reach Le’s lawyers for comment Monday were unsuccessful.

Apple’s top executives committed “securities fraud” when they made “materially false” statements during the holiday quarter about the robustness of iPhone sales in China, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland, seeking class-action status. CEO Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri misled investors by standing by their optimistic iPhone forecasts when they “knew and failed to disclose” that the U.S.-China trade war “had negatively impacted demand for iPhones and Apple’s pricing power in greater China,” alleged the Roseville (California) Employees’ Retirement System, which bought 512 shares of Apple stock Nov. 18 for $175.83 a share. Cook and Maestri also hid from investors the high rate at which Apple customers “were replacing their batteries in older iPhones rather than purchasing new iPhones,” and that it was “negatively impacting” iPhone sales growth, said the complaint. Apple’s decision to stop disclosing iPhone unit sales was designed to “mask” the declining shipments, it said. When Apple “shocked the market” Jan. 2 by finally disclosing it would miss its quarterly revenue target by up to $9 billion on the poor state of iPhone sales, especially in China, it sent the stock tumbling to a 52-week low of $142 the next trading day (see 1901030036), it said. Apple shares closed 2 percent higher Wednesday at $203.13. The “misrepresentations” alleged in the complaint “would tend to induce a reasonable investor to misjudge the value of Apple common stock,” rising to the level of fraud, it said. Apple didn’t comment Wednesday.

Apple and Qualcomm announced a patent dispute settlement Tuesday, dismissing all worldwide litigation between the tech companies (see 1903270012). The deal includes an undisclosed payment from Apple to Qualcomm. A six-year license agreement, effective April 1, carries a two-year extension option. The two sides also reached a multiyear chipset supply agreement. Qualcomm closed 23.2 percent higher at $70.45 Tuesday, and Apple closed virtually flat at $199.25.

Oracle’s software packages are 'copyright-protected,' and Google’s “copying of the material” wasn't fair use, Oracle argued to the Supreme Court Wednesday, citing previous court decisions (see 1902250065). Oracle dismissed Google’s “doomsday predictions about the imminent demise of the software industry.” Oracle develops a “licensing regime to ensure compatibility,” and its computer programs help programmers write their own applications, Oracle said. It accused Google of copying thousands of lines of code and the structure of 37 software packages. Overturning long-accepted software practices will hurt innovation across the computer industry, Google Senior Vice President-Global Affairs Kent Walker emailed Thursday. "Oracle is just wrong. … We are asking the Supreme Court to hold that copyright law supports the kind of interoperability that has been critical to the astonishing progress of software development in the United States.”