An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Just before the weekend, dozens of record labels including UMG, Warner, and Sony, filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Verizon at a New York federal court. In common with previous lawsuits that accused rivals of similar inaction, Verizon Communications Inc., Verizon Services Corp., and Cellco Partnership (dba Verizon Wireless), stand accused of assisting subscribers to download and share pirated music, by not doing enough to stop them. The labels' complaint introduces Verizon as one of the largest ISPs in the country, one that "knowingly provides its high-speed service to a massive community of online pirates."

Knowledge of infringement, the labels say, was established at Verizon over a period of several years during which it received "hundreds of thousands" of copyright notices, referencing instances of infringement allegedly carried out by its subscribers. The complaint cites Verizon subscribers' persistent use of BitTorrent networks to download and share pirated music, with Verizon allegedly failing to curtail their activity. "While Verizon is famous for its 'Can you hear me now?' advertising campaign, it has intentionally chosen not to listen to complaints from copyright owners. Instead of taking action in response to those infringement notices as the law requires, Verizon ignored Plaintiffs' notices and buried its head in the sand," the labels write.

"Undeterred, infringing subscribers identified in Plaintiffs' notices continued to use Verizon's services to infringe Plaintiffs' copyrights with impunity. Meanwhile, Verizon continued to provide its high-speed service to thousands of known repeat infringers so it could continue to collect millions of dollars from them." Through this lawsuit, which references piracy of songs recorded by artists including The Rolling Stones, Ariana Grande, Bob Dylan, Bruno Mars, Elvis Presley, Dua Lipa, Drake, and others, the labels suggest that Verizon will have no choice but to hear them now. [...]

Attached to the complaint, Exhibit A contains a non-exhaustive list of the plaintiffs' copyright works allegedly infringed by Verizon's subscribers. The document is over 400 pages long, with each track listed representing potential liability for Verizon as a willful, intentional, and purposeful contributory infringer, the complaint notes. This inevitably leads to claims based on maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per copyrighted work infringed on Count I (contributory infringement). The statutory maximum of $150,000 per infringed work is also applied to Count II (vicarious infringement), based on the labels' claim that Verizon derived a direct financial benefit from the direct infringements of its subscribers. The labels' complaint can be found here (PDF).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A federal appeals court has agreed to halt the reinstatement of net neutrality rules until August 5th, while the court considers whether more permanent action is justified. It's the latest setback in a long back and forth on net neutrality -- the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) should not be able to block or throttle internet traffic in a discriminatory manner. The Federal Communications Commission has sought to achieve this by reclassifying ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act, which gives the agency greater regulatory oversight. The Democratic-led agency enacted net neutrality rules under the Obama administration, only for those rules to be repealed under former President Donald Trump's FCC. The current FCC, which has three Democratic and two Republican commissioners, voted in April to bring back net neutrality. The 3-2 vote was divided along party lines.

Broadband providers have since challenged the FCC's action, which is potentially more vulnerable after the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down Chevron deference -- a legal doctrine that instructed courts to defer to an agency's expert decisions except in a very narrow range of circumstances. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matt Schettenhelm said in a report prior to the court's ruling that he doesn't expect the FCC to prevail in court, in large part due to the demise of Chevron. A panel of judges for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said in an order that a temporary "administrative stay is warranted" while it considers the merits of the broadband providers' request for a permanent stay. The administrative stay will be in place until August 5th. In the meantime, the court requested the parties provide additional briefs about the application of National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services to this lawsuit.

Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, has told workers in its U.S.-based division that they are being laid off this week and that it is closing its U.S. business, Zero Day reported Monday, citing sources. From a report: The sudden move comes after the U.S. Commerce Department announced last month that it was banning the sale of Kaspersky software in the U.S. beginning July 20. The company has been selling its software here since 2005. Kaspersky confirmed the news to Zero Day, saying that beginning July 20 it will "gradually wind down" its U.S. operations and eliminate U.S.-based positions as a result of the new ban, despite initially vowing to fight the ban in court.

Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 shared this report from non-profit libertarian law firm, the Institute for Justice: U.S. District Judge Rita Lin has permanently enjoined the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services from enforcing its private-investigator licensing requirement against anti-spam entrepreneur Jay Fink. The order declares that forcing Jay to get a license to run his business is so irrational that it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment...

Jay's business stems from California's anti-spam act, which allows individuals to sue spammers. But to sue, they have to first compile evidence. To do that, recipients often have to wade through thousands of emails. For more than a decade, Jay has offered a solution: he and his team will scour a client's junk folder and catalog the messages that likely violate the law. But last summer, Jay's job — and Californians' ability to bring spammers to justice — came to a screeching halt when the state told him he was a criminal. A regulator told Jay he needed a license to read through emails that might be used as evidence in a lawsuit. And because Jay didn't have a private investigator license, the state shut him down.
The state of California has since "agreed to jointly petition the court for an order that forever prohibits it from enforcing its licensure law against Jay," according to the article.

Otherwise the anti-spam crusader would've had to endure thousands of hours of private investigator training...

Slashdot reader Kirschey writes: The U.S. Customs and Border Protection determined that the redesigned Apple Watch models do not violate AliveCor's electrocardiogram patents, allowing them to be imported. This decision comes before a consolidated hearing at the Federal Circuit Court regarding the same patents.
From the decision: We find that Apple Inc. ("Apple") has met its burden to show that certain redesigned wearable devices ("articles at issue") do not infringe one or more of claims 12, 13, and 19-23 of U.S. Patent No. 10,638,941 ("the '941 Patent") and claims 1, 3, 5, 8-10, 12, 15, and 16 of U.S. Patent No. 10,595,731 ("the '731 Patent). Thus, CBP's position is that the articles at issue are not subject to the limited exclusion order that the U.S. International Trade Commission ("Commission" or "ITC") issued in Investigation No. 337-TA-1266 ("the underlying investigation" or "the 1266 investigation"), pursuant to Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, 19 U.S.C. 1337 ("Section 337").

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A data breach at the phone surveillance operation mSpy has exposed millions of its customers who bought access to the phone spyware app over the past decade, as well as the Ukrainian company behind it. Unknown attackers stole millions of customer support tickets, including personal information, emails to support, and attachments, including personal documents, from mSpy in May 2024. While hacks of spyware purveyors are becoming increasingly common, they remain notable because of the highly sensitive personal information often included in the data, in this case about the customers who use the service. The hack encompassed customer service records dating back to 2014, which were stolen from the spyware maker's Zendesk-powered customer support system.

mSpy is a phone surveillance app that promotes itself as a way to track children or monitor employees. Like most spyware, it is also widely used to monitor people without their consent. These kinds of apps are also known as "stalkerware" because people in romantic relationships often use them to surveil their partner without consent or permission. The mSpy app allows whoever planted the spyware, typically someone who previously had physical access to a victim's phone, to remotely view the phone's contents in real-time. As is common with phone spyware, mSpy's customer records include emails from people seeking help to surreptitiously track the phones of their partners, relatives, or children, according to TechCrunch's review of the data, which we independently obtained. Some of those emails and messages include requests for customer support from several senior-ranking U.S. military personnel, a serving U.S. federal appeals court judge, a U.S. government department's watchdog, and an Arkansas county sheriff's office seeking a free license to trial the app. Even after amassing several million customer service tickets, the leaked Zendesk data is thought to represent only the portion of mSpy's overall customer base who reached out for customer support. The number of mSpy customers is likely to be far higher. mSpy's owners, a Ukraine-based company called Brainstack, have yet to publicly disclose the breach. You can visit Have I Been Pwned to see if your email address was involved in a breach.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A CNN investigation found the use of hidden cameras is a persistent problem in the industry. Regulations are sparse, and the punishments for those that commit these crimes are lenient -- video voyeurism is typically charged as a misdemeanor. Meanwhile, the people who are recorded -- often naked or engaging in sexual activities -- say they suffer from long-term trauma and the fear that their images could, at any moment, be disseminated on the internet. An Airbnb spokesperson told CNN that hidden camera complaints are rare, but when they do occur, "we take appropriate, swift action, which can include removing hosts and listings that violate the policy."

At a court-ordered deposition last year, an Airbnb representative was supposed to answer a key question from the attorney suing the company: How many complaints or reports had been made to Airbnb since December 1, 2013, of people who had been recorded by surveillance devices? The Airbnb representative testified that the company generated 35,000 customer support tickets about surveillance devices in the preceding decade. An Airbnb spokesperson told CNN that a single report could create multiple tickets. The company declined to specify how many unique complaints there have been. In the deposition, which has not been previously reported, the company representative sought to downplay the significance of the number of tickets, testifying they could reflect instances such as a malfunctioning doorbell camera or a tablet with recording capabilities left out on a coffee table. The representative did not provide any statistics detailing the number of claims she suggested were innocuous among the 35,000 tickets.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: US officials say they have taken action against an AI-powered information operation run from Russia, including nearly 1,000 accounts pretending to be Americans. The accounts on X were designed to spread pro-Russia stories but were automated "bots" -- not real people. In court documents made public Tuesday the US justice department said the operation was devised by a deputy editor at Kremlin-owned RT, formerly Russia Today. RT runs TV channels in English and several other languages, but appears much more popular on social media than on conventional airwaves.

The justice department seized two websites that were used to issue emails associated with the bot accounts, and ordered X to turn over information relating to 968 accounts that investigators say were bots. According to the court documents, artificial intelligence was used to create the accounts, which then spread pro-Russian story lines, particularly about the war in Ukraine. "Today's actions represent a first in disrupting a Russian-sponsored generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm," said FBI Director Christopher Wray. "Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government," Mr Wray said in a statement. The accounts now appear to have been deleted by X, and screenshots shared by FBI investigators indicated that they had very few followers.

A US District Court judge in San Francisco has largely dismissed a class-action lawsuit against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI, which challenged the legality of using code samples to train GitHub Copilot. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs failed to establish a claim for restitution or unjust enrichment but allowed the claim for breach of open-source license violations to proceed. InfoWorld reports: The lawsuit, first filed in Nov. 2022, claimed that GitHub's training of the Copilot AI on public GitHub code repositories violated the rights of the "vast number of creators" who posted code under open-source licenses on GitHub. The complaint (PDF) alleged that "Copilot ignores, violates, and removes the Licenses offered by thousands -- possibly millions -- of software developers, thereby accomplishing software piracy on an unprecedented scale." [...]

In a decision first announced on June 24, but only unsealed and made public on July 5, California Northern District judge Jon S. Tigar wrote that "In sum, plaintiff's claims do not support the remedy they seek. Plaintiffs have failed to establish, as a matter of law, that restitution for any unjust enrichment is available as a measure of plaintiffs' damages for their breach of contract claims." Judge Tigar went on to state that "court dismisses plaintiffs' section 1202(b) claim, this time with prejudice. The Court declines to dismiss plaintiffs' claim for breach of contract of open-source license violations against all defendants. Finally, the court dismisses plaintiffs' request for monetary relief in the form of unjust enrichment, as well as plaintiffs' request for punitive damages."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Northwest Oregon had never seen anything like it. Over the course of three days in June 2021, Multnomah County -- the state's most populous county, which rests in the swayback along Oregon's northern border -- recorded highs of 108, 112, and 116 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures were so hot that the metal on cable cars melted and the asphalt on roadways buckled. Nearly half the homes in the county lacked cooling systems because of Oregon's typically gentle summers, where average highs top out at 81 degrees. Sixty-nine people perished from heat stroke, most of them in their homes. When scientific studies showed that the extreme temperatures were caused by heat domes, which experts say are influenced by climate change, county officials didn't just chalk it up to a random weather occurrence. They started researching the large fossil fuel companies whose emissions are driving the climate crisis -- including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron -- and sued them (PDF).

"This catastrophe was not caused by an act of God," said Jeffrey B. Simon, a lawyer for the county, "but rather by several of the world's largest energy companies playing God with the lives of innocent and vulnerable people by selling as much oil and gas as they could." Now, 11 months after the suit was filed, Multnomah County is preparing to move forward with the case in Oregon state court after a federal judge in June settled (PDF) a monthslong debate over where the suit should be heard. About three dozen lawsuits have been filed by states, counties, and cities seeking damages from oil and gas companies for harms caused by climate change. Legal experts said the Oregon case is one of the first focused on public health costs related to high temperatures during a specific occurrence of the "heat dome effect." Most of the other lawsuits seek damages more generally from such ongoing climate-related impacts as sea level rise, increased precipitation, intensifying extreme weather events, and flooding. [...]

The Multnomah County lawsuit says that Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and others engaged in a range of improper practices, including negligence, creating a public nuisance, fraud, and deceit. The suit alleges that the companies were aware of the harms of fossil fuels and engaged in a "scheme to rapaciously sell fossil fuel products and deceptively promote them as harmless to the environment, while they knew that carbon pollution emitted by their products into the atmosphere would likely cause deadly extreme heat events like that which devastated Multnomah County." "We know that climate-induced weather events like the 2021 Heat Dome harm the residents of Multnomah County and cause real financial costs to our local government," Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said in a statement. "The Court's decision to hear this lawsuit in State Court validates our assertion that the case should be resolved here -- it's an important win for this community." In the suit, officials in Portland's Multnomah County said that they will ultimately incur costs in excess of $1.5 billion to deal with the effects of the 2021 heat dome.

"We allege that this is just like any other kind of public health crisis and mass destruction of property that is caused by corporate wrongdoing," said Simon, partner in the law firm of Simon Greenstone Panatier. "We contend that these companies polluted the atmosphere with carbon from the burning of fossil fuels; that they foresaw that extreme environmental harm would be caused by it; that some of them, we contend, deliberately misled the public about that."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A court in south-west Spain has sentenced 15 schoolchildren to a year's probation for creating and spreading AI-generated images of their female peers in a case that prompted a debate on the harmful and abusive uses of deepfake technology. Police began investigating the matter last year after parents in the Extremaduran town of Almendralejo reported that faked naked pictures of their daughters were being circulated on WhatsApp groups. The mother of one of the victims said the dissemination of the pictures on WhatsApp had been going on since July.

"Many girls were completely terrified and had tremendous anxiety attacks because they were suffering this in silence," she told Reuters at the time. "They felt bad and were afraid to tell and be blamed for it." On Tuesday, a youth court in the city of Badajoz said it had convicted the minors of 20 counts of creating child abuse images and 20 counts of offenses against their victims' moral integrity. Each of the defendants was handed a year's probation and ordered to attend classes on gender and equality awareness, and on the "responsible use of technology." [...] Police identified several teenagers aged between 13 and 15 as being responsible for generating and sharing the images. Under Spanish law minors under 14 cannot be charged but their cases are sent to child protection services, which can force them to take part in rehabilitation courses. Further reading: First-Known TikTok Mob Attack Led By Middle Schoolers Tormenting Teachers

Anna's Archive, a meta-search engine for pirated books and other sources, faces monetary damages and a permanent injunction at a U.S. court. According to TorrentFreak, the operators of the site "failed to respond to a lawsuit filed by [Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)], after its WorldCat database was scraped and published online." From the report: The site launched in the fall of 2022, just days after Z-Library was targeted in a U.S. criminal crackdown, to ensure continued availability of 'free' books and articles to the broader public. Late last year, Anna's Archive expanded its offering by making information from OCLC's proprietary WorldCat database available online. The site's operators took more than a year to scrape several terabytes of data and published roughly 700 million unique records online, for free.

This 'metadata' heist was a massive breakthrough in the site's quest to archive as much published content as possible. However, OCLC wasn't pleased and responded with a lawsuit (PDF) at an Ohio federal court, accusing the site and its operators of hacking and demanding damages. The non-profit says that it spent more than a million dollars responding to Anna's Archive's alleged hacking efforts. Even then, it couldn't prevent the data from being released through a torrent. "Defendants, through the Anna's Archive domains, have made, and continue to make, all 2.2 TB of WorldCat data available for public download through its torrents," OCLC wrote in the complaint it filed in an Ohio federal court.

In the months that passed since then, the operators of Anna's Archive didn't respond in court. The only named defendant flat-out denied all connections to the site, and OCLC didn't receive any response from any of the official Anna's Archive email addresses that were served. Meanwhile, the pirate library continues to offer the WorldCat data, which is a major problem for the organization. Without the prospect of a two-sided legal battle, OCLC has now moved for a default judgment. [...] In addition to monetary damages, the non-profit also seeks injunctive relief. The motion doesn't specify the requested measures, but the original complaint sought an order that prevents Anna's Archive from scraping WorldCat data going forward. In addition, all previously scraped data should no longer be distributed. Instead, it should be destroyed in full, including all the torrents that are currently being offered.

After two rejections, Apple has approved the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union. "This paves the way for Epic CEO Tim Sweeney to realize his long-stated goal of launching an alternative game store on Apple's closed platform -- at least in Europe," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Apple announced plans to allow third-party app stores on iOS in the region earlier this year, complying with the letter of the law (though some say not the spirit) as required by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which was enacted in hopes of making platforms more open and competitive. Apple's new policies allow for alternative app marketplaces but with some big caveats regarding the deal that app developers agree to.

The change followed years of contentious PR campaigns and court battles around the world between Epic and Apple, with Sweeney proclaiming that Apple's app approval processes are anti-competitive and that its 30 percent cut of app revenues is unfair. Even after the shift, Apple is said to have rejected the Epic Games Store app twice. The rejections were over specific rules about the copy and shape of buttons within the app, though not about its primary function. [...] Apple went ahead and approved the app despite the disagreement over the copy and button designs. However, AppleInsider reported that Apple will still require Epic to change the copy and buttons later.

Andy Maxwell reports via TorrentFreak: On November 4, 2022, the United States Department of Justice and the FBI began seizing Z-Library's domains as part of a major operation to shut down the infamous 'shadow library' platform. A criminal investigation had identified two Russian nationals, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova, as the alleged operators of the site. On October 21, 2022, at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Judge Sanket J. Bulsara ordered their arrest. They were detained in Argentina on November 3, 2022. After arriving at the Ambrosio Taravella International Airport, the unsuspecting couple cleared customs and hired a car from a popular rental company. The United States Embassy informed local authorities that the pair were subject to an Interpol Red Notice.

At what point the Russians' phones were tapped is unclear but, under the authority of a Federal Court arrest warrant, Argentinian law enforcement began tracking the couple's movements as they traveled south in their rented Toyota Corolla. [...] [F]ollowing a visit to El Calafate, the pair were arrested by airport security police as they arrived in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz. They were later transferred to Cordoba. In January 2023, Judge Miguel Hugo Vaca Narvaja authorized the Russians to be detained under house arrest. Approval from Cordoba prosecutor Maximiliano Hairabedian, who was responsible for the request to extradite Napolsky and Ermakova to the United States, was not obtained. With a federal indictment, alleging criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering offenses, waiting for them in the United States, the priority for Napolsky and Ermakova would soon be their fight against extradition. [...]

Patronato del Liberado (Patronage of the Liberated) is responsible for assisting people who have previously been detained by the authorities with family and social reintegration. It's also tasked with monitoring compliance of those on probation or subject to house arrest. According to unnamed 'judicial sources' cited by La Voz, which receives full credit for a remarkable scoop, when the group conducted a regular visit in May, to verify that Napolsky and Ermakova were in compliance with the rules set by the state, there was no trace of them. Patronato del Liberado raised the alarm and Judge Sanchez Freytes was immediately notified. Counsel for the defense during the extradition hearings said that he hadn't been able to contact the Russians either. The Judge ordered an international arrest warrant although there appeared to be at least some hope the pair hadn't left the country. However, that was many weeks ago and with no obvious news suggesting their recapture, the pair could be anywhere by now.

Boeing agreed on Sunday to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the government in a case linked to crashes of its 737 Max jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people -- a stunning turn for the aerospace giant after the Justice Department determined that Boeing failed to live up to terms of a 2021 deal to avoid prosecution. Washington Post adds: Prosecutors alleged that two Boeing pilots concealed key information from the Federal Aviation Administration about a new automated control system on the Max. The system was implicated in both crashes, causing uncontrollable dives. By agreeing to plead guilty to the single felony count just before a midnight deadline Sunday, the company will avoid going to trial in the high-profile case.

The Justice Department filed documents related to the deal in federal court in Texas late Sunday night, setting up a planned hearing where family members -- who have criticized the pending agreement -- will be permitted to speak out. The court subsequently must decide whether to accept the plea agreement. Boeing had already agreed to $2.5 billion in penalties and payouts in 2021. As part of the new deal, the company will pay an additional $487.2 million in penalties, agree to oversight by an independent monitor, spend at least $455 million to strengthen compliance and safety programs and be placed on supervised probation for roughly three years, according to a Justice Department official. The agreement also included one thing crash victims' families long sought: a meeting with Boeing's board of directors.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Business Insider: It's a political tale as old as time: put up a campaign poster in your yard, and thieves come to snatch it. But according to The Wall Street Journal, those fed up with front lawn looting are embracing a modern solution. Apple's geo-tracking AirTag devices are helping owners find their signs — and sometimes, even the people who stole them.

The practice has already led to charges. In one example cited by the outlet, Florida politician John Dittmore decided to hide the coin-sized gadget on one of his posters after waking up to a number of thefts in May... [Two teenagers were charged with criminal mischief and the theft of nine signs.]

In other cited cases, stolen signs don't end up with teens, but in the homes of electoral opponents. After Chris Torre became the victim of poster snatching, AirTags led him to the residence of Renee Rountree, the Journal said. Both were running for a seat on the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors in Virginia. Her son-in-law was charged with a misdemeanor for stealing the property, while Rountree faced a misdemeanor for receiving stolen goods. In a December trial, she noted plans to return the signs. Rountree has since been ordered to 250 hours of community service.

"I would like to think that this will have a huge deterrent effect," the trial's judge said in the court's transcript, quoted by WSJ.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: With dozens of millions of monthly visits, Animeflix positioned itself as one of the most popular anime piracy portals. The site also has an active Discord community of around 35k members, who actively participate in discussions, art competitions, even a chess tournament. While rightsholders take no offense at these side-projects, the site's core business was streaming pirated videos. That hasn't gone unnoticed; last December Animeflix was listed as one of the shutdown targets of anti-piracy coalition ACE.

Whether these early enforcement efforts were responsible for the site's closure is unclear. In May, rightsholders increased the pressure through the High Court of India, obtaining a broad injunction that effectively suspended Animeflix's main domain name; Animeflix.live. This follow-up action didn't seem to hurt the site too much. It simply moved to new domains, Animeflix.gg and Animeflix.li, informing its users that the old domain name had become "unavailable." Yesterday, the site became unreachable again, initially returning a Cloudflare error message. This time, the domain wasn't the problem but, for reasons unknown, the team decided to shut down the site without prior notice.

"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Animeflix. After careful consideration, we have decided to shut down our service effective immediately. We deeply appreciate your support and enthusiasm over the years." "Thank you for being a part of our journey. We hope the joy and excitement of anime continue to brighten your days through other wonderful platforms," the Animeflix team adds. The Animeflix team doesn't provide any insight into its reasoning, but it's clear that keeping a site like that online isn't without challenges. And, when a pirate site shuts down, voluntarily or not, copyright issues typically play a role. It's clear that rightsholders were keeping an eye on the site, and were actively seeking out options to take it offline. That might have played a role in the shutdown decision but without more information from the team, we can only speculate.

Google is intensifying efforts to decrease its dependency on Apple's Safari browser, as a U.S. antitrust lawsuit threatens its default search engine status on iPhones. The tech giant has been trying to shift more iPhone searches to its own apps, with the percentage rising from 25% five years ago to the low 30s recently, The Information reported Friday.

Progress has stalled in recent months, however. To attract users, Google has run advertising campaigns showcasing unique features like Lens image search. The company recently hired former Instagram executive Robby Stein to lead this initiative, potentially leveraging AI to enhance its apps' appeal. Google paid Apple over $20 billion last year for default status on Safari. Reducing this dependency could protect Google's mobile search advertising revenue if the antitrust ruling goes against it. The report adds: Google executives considered having its new AI Overviews feature, which shows AI-generated responses to search queries, appear on its mobile apps but not on Safari, people who have worked on the product said. But Google ultimately decided against that move.

ZipNada writes: A federal court in Texas has partially blocked the government's ban on noncompete agreements that was set to take effect September 4. An estimated 30 million people, or one in five American workers, are bound by noncompetes. The employment agreements typically prevent workers -- everyone from minimum wage earners to CEOs -- from joining competing businesses or launching ones of their own.

In its complaint, Ryan LLC accused the FTC of overstepping its statutory authority in declaring all noncompetes unfair and anticompetitive. Judge Brown agreed, writing, "The FTC lacks substantive rulemaking authority with respect to unfair methods of competition." Through a statement Wednesday evening, the FTC said its authority is supported by both statute and precedent. "We will keep fighting to free hardworking Americans from unlawful noncompetes, which reduce innovation, inhibit economic growth, trap workers, and undermine Americans' economic liberty," wrote FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar. The FTC has long argued that noncompetes hurt workers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Hikari-no-Akari, a long-established and popular pirate site that specializes in Japanese music, is being targeted in U.S. federal court by Sony Music. [...] The music download portal, which links to externally hosted files, has been operating for well over a decade and currently draws more than a million monthly visits. In addition to the public-facing part of the site, HnA also has a private forum and Discord channel. [...] Apparently, Sony Music Japan has been keeping an eye on the unauthorized music portal. The company has many of its works shared on the site, including anime theme music, which is popular around the globe.

For example, a few weeks ago, HnA posted "Sayonara, Mata Itsuka!" from the Japanese artist Kenshi Yonezu, which is used as the theme song for the asadora series "The Tiger and Her Wings." Around the same time, PEACEKEEPER, a song by Japanese musician STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION, featured in the third season of the series "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime", was shared on the site. Sony Music Japan is a rightsholder for both these tracks, as well as many others that were posted on the site. The music company presumably tried to contact HnA directly to have these listings removed and reached out to its CDN service Cloudflare too, asking it to take action. [...] They are a prerequisite for obtaining a DMCA subpoena, which Sony Music Japan requested at a California federal court this week.

Sony requested two DMCA subpoenas, both targeted at hikarinoakari.com and hnadownloads.co. The latter domain receives the bulk of its traffic from the first, which isn't a surprise considering the 'hnadownloads' name. Through the subpoena, the music company hopes to obtain additional information on the people behind these sites. That includes, names, IP-addresses, and payment info. Presumably, this will be used for follow-up enforcement actions. It's unclear whether Cloudflare will be able to hand over any usable information and for the moment, HnA remains online. Several of the infringing URLs that were identified by Sony have recently been taken down, including this one. However, others remain readily available. The same applies to private forum threads and Discord postings, of course.