Apple has filed an emergency motion [PDF] for a stay in the Google antitrust trial, warning that it faces "clear and substantial irreparable harm" if barred from participating in the case's remedies phase. The motion, filed on January 30, 2025, comes after Judge Amit Mehta denied Apple's request for limited intervention earlier in the week.

Apple -- which makes more than $20 billion a year from Google to use the Android-maker's search engine on Safari -- argues that the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) proposed remedy -- which includes a prohibition on "any contract between Google and Apple in which there would be anything exchanged of value" --would prevent it from negotiating agreements that benefit millions of users. Without the ability to fully participate, Apple contends it will be left as a "mere spectator" while the government pursues restrictions that directly impact its business interests.

The company asserts that intervention is necessary to develop evidence, participate in discovery, and cross-examine witnesses regarding its market role and incentives. Apple also seeks access to trial records while its appeal is pending, including witness lists, depositions, and discovery materials, to ensure it can respond effectively if granted party status.

Italy's data protection agency has blocked the Chinese AI chatbot DeekSeek after its developers failed to disclose how it collects user data or whether it is stored on Chinese servers. Reuters reports: DeepSeek could not be accessed on Wednesday in Apple or Google app stores in Italy, the day after the authority, known also as the Garante, requested information on its use of personal data. In particular, it wanted to know what personal data is collected, from which sources, for what purposes, on what legal basis and whether it is stored in China. The authority's decision -- aimed at protecting Italian users' data -- came after the Chinese companies that supply chatbot service to DeepSeek provided information that "was considered to totally insufficient," the authority said in a note on its website. The Garante added that the decision had "immediate effect" and that it had also opened an investigation. Thanks to new submitter axettone for sharing the news.

A proposed class-action lawsuit accuses Amazon of secretly tracking consumers' movements through their cellphones via its Amazon Ads SDK embedded in third-party apps, allegedly collecting sensitive geolocation data without consent. The complaint, filed by a California resident in a San Francisco federal court, claims Amazon violated state laws on unauthorized computer access in the process. Reuters reports: This allegedly enabled Amazon to collect an enormous amount of timestamped geolocation data about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, revealing sensitive information such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations and health concerns. "Amazon has effectively fingerprinted consumers and has correlated a vast amount of personal information about them entirely without consumers' knowledge and consent," the complaint said.

The complaint was filed by Felix Kolotinsky of San Mateo, California, who said Amazon collected his personal information through the "Speedtest by Ookla" app on his phone. He said Amazon's conduct violated California's penal law and a state law against unauthorized computer access, and seeks unspecified damages for millions of Californians.

Longtime Slashdot reader nunya_bizns shares a report from Reuters: The U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise's $14 billion deal to acquire networking gear maker Juniper Networks, arguing that it would stifle competition, according to a complaint filed on Thursday. The DOJ argued that the acquisition would eliminate competition and would lead to only two companies -- Cisco Systems and HPE -- controlling more than 70% of the U.S. market for networking equipment. More than a year ago, the server maker said that it would buy Juniper Networks for $14 billion in an all-cash deal, as it looks to spruce up its artificial intelligence offerings.

"Juniper has also introduced innovative tools that have materially decreased the cost of operating a wireless network for many customers. This competitive pressure has forced HPE to discount its offerings and invest in its own innovation," the DOJ said in its complaint. Stiff competition from Juniper forced HPE to sell its products at a discount and spend to introduce new features under the "Beat Mist" campaign, named after the networking gear company's rival product, the DOJ wrote. "Having failed to beat Mist on the merits, HPE changed tactics and in January 2024 opted to try to buy Juniper instead," the agency added.

The company that Jeff Bezos founded has gone to court to keep the newspaper he owns from finding out too much about the inner workings of its business. From a report: Amazon is suing Washington state to limit the release of public records to The Washington Post from a series of state Department of Labor and Industries investigations of an Amazon Project Kuiper satellite facility in the Seattle area.

The lawsuit, filed this week in King County Superior Court in Seattle, says the newspaper on Nov. 26 requested "copies of inspection records, investigation notes, interview notes, complaints," and other documents related to four investigations at the Redmond, Wash., facility between August and October 2024. It's not an unusual move by the company, and in some ways it's a legal technicality.

Amazon says it's not seeking to block the records release entirely, but rather seeking to protect from public disclosure certain records that contain proprietary information and trade secrets about the company's satellite internet operations. The lawsuit cites a prior situation in which Amazon and the Department of Labor and Industries similarly worked through the court to respond to a Seattle Times public records request without disclosing proprietary information.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: While most of our conversations about Nintendo recently have focused on the somewhat bizarre patent lawsuit the company filed against Pocketpair over the hit game Palworld, traditionally our coverage of the company has focused more on the very wide net of IP bullying it engages in. This is a company absolutely notorious for behaving in as protectionist a fashion as possible with anything even remotely related to its IP. That reputation is so well known, in fact, that it serves the company's bullying purposes. When smaller entities get threat letters or oppositions to applied-for trademarks and the like, some simply back down without a fight.

But not the Super Mario shop in Costa Rica, it seems. The supermarket store owned by a man named Mario (hence the name), has had a trademark on its name since 2013. But when Mario's son, Charlito, went to renew the registration, Nintendo's lawyers suddenly came calling. Last year it was time to renew the registration, Charlito stated, which prompted Nintendo to get involved. While Nintendo has trademarked the use of Super Mario worldwide under numerous categories, including video games, clothing and toys, it appears the company did not specifically state anything about the names of supermarkets. This, Charlito says, was the key factor in the decision by Costa Rica's trademark authority, the National Register, to side with the supermarket. "As you will see from the picture [here], it is extremely clear, based on the rest of the store's signage and branding, that there is absolutely no attempt in any of this to draw any kind of association with Nintendo's iconic character," writes Techdirt's Timothy Geigner. "The shop already had the name for over a decade, and had a trademark on the name for over a decade, all apparently without any noticeable effect on Nintendo's enormous business. For a renewal of that mark to trigger this kind of conflict is absurd."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: US Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) today proposed a law that would let copyright owners obtain court orders requiring Internet service providers to block access to foreign piracy websites. The bill would also force DNS providers to block sites. Lofgren said in a press release that she "work[ed] for over a year with the tech, film, and television industries" on "a proposal that has a remedy for copyright infringers located overseas that does not disrupt the free Internet except for the infringers." Lofgren said she plans to work with Republican leaders to enact the bill. [...]

Lofgren's bill (PDF) would impose site-blocking requirements on broadband providers with at least 100,000 subscribers and providers of public domain name resolution services with annual revenue of over $100 million. The bill has exemptions for VPN services and "similar services that encrypt and route user traffic through intermediary servers"; DNS providers that offer service "exclusively through encrypted DNS protocols"; and operators of premises that provide Internet access, like coffee shops, bookstores, airlines, and universities. Lofgren released a summary of the bill explaining how copyright owners can obtain blocking orders. "A copyright owner or exclusive licensee may file a petition in US District Court to obtain a preliminary order against a foreign website or online service engaging in copyright infringement," the summary said.

For non-live content, the petition must show that "transmission of a work through a foreign website likely infringes exclusive rights under Section 106 [of US law] and is causing irreparable harm." For live events, a petition must show that "an imminent or ongoing unauthorized transmission of a live event is likely to infringe, and will cause irreparable harm." The proposed law says that after a preliminary order is issued, copyright owners would be able to obtain orders directing service providers "to take reasonable and technically feasible measures to prevent users of the service provided by the service provider from accessing the foreign website or online service identified in the order." Judges would not be permitted to "prescribe any specific technical measures" for blocking and may not require any action that would prevent Internet users from using virtual private networks.Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge described the bill as a "censorious site-blocking" measure "that turns broadband providers into copyright police at Americans' expense."

"Rather than attacking the problem at its source -- bringing the people running overseas piracy websites to court -- Congress and its allies in the entertainment industry has decided to build out a sweeping infrastructure for censorship," Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Meredith Rose said. "Site-blocking orders force any service provider, from residential broadband providers to global DNS resolvers, to disrupt traffic from targeted websites accused of copyright infringement. More importantly, applying blocking orders to global DNS resolvers results in global blocks. This means that one court can cut off access to a website globally, based on one individual's filing and an expedited procedure. Blocking orders are incredibly powerful weapons, ripe for abuse, and we've seen the messy consequences of them being implemented in other countries."

Google has appealed a record $4.5 billion EU antitrust fine to the European Court of Justice, arguing that the European Commission's decision punished its innovation and imposed unfair penalties for agreements requiring pre-installation of its apps on Android devices. Reuters reports: Google's appeal to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union comes two years after a lower tribunal sided with the European Commission which said the company used its Android mobile operating system to quash rivals. The lower court trimmed the fine to 4.1 billion euros.

"Google does not contest or shy away from its responsibility under the law, but the Commission also has a responsibility when it runs investigations, when it seeks to reshape markets and second-guess pro-competitive business models, and when it imposes multi-billion-euro fines," Google lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid told the court. "In this case, the Commission failed to discharge its burden and its responsibility and, relying on multiple errors of law, punished Google for its superior merits, attractiveness and innovation," he said. The final ruling is expected in the coming months and cannot be appealed.

A plan to keep TikTok available in the U.S. "involves tapping software company Oracle and a group of outside investors," reports NPR, "to effectively take control of the app's global operations, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks..."

"[P]otential investors who are engaged in the talks include Microsoft." Under the deal now being negotiated by the White House, TikTok's China-based owner ByteDance would retain a minority stake in the company, but the app's algorithm, data collection and software updates will be overseen by Oracle, which already provides the foundation of TikTok's web infrastructure... "The goal is for Oracle to effectively monitor and provide oversight with what is going on with TikTok," said the person directly involved in the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the deliberations. "ByteDance wouldn't completely go away, but it would minimize Chinese ownership...." Officials from Oracle and the White House held a meeting on Friday about a potential deal, and another meeting has been scheduled for next week, according to the source involved in the discussions, who said Oracle is interested in a TikTok stake "in the tens of billions," but the rest of the deal is in flux...

Under a law passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, TikTok must execute what is known as "qualified divestiture" from ByteDance in order to stay in business in the U.S... A congressional staffer involved in talks about TikTok's future, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said binding legal agreements from the White House ensuring ByteDance cannot covertly manipulate the app will prove critical in winning lawmakers' approval. "A key part is showing there is no operational relationship with ByteDance, that they do not have control," the Congressional staffer said. "There needs to be no backdoors where China can potentially gain access...."

Chinese regulators, who have for years opposed the selling of TikTok, recently signaled that they would not stand in the way of a TikTok ownership change, saying acquisitions "should be independently decided by the enterprises and based on market principles." The statement, at first, does not seem to say much, but negotiators in the White House believe it indicates that Beijing is not planning to block a deal that gives American investors a majority-stake position in the company.
"Meanwhile, Apple and Google still have not returned TikTok to app stores..."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A U.S. auto safety agency said on Friday it is reconsidering a landmark rule from the administration of former President Joe Biden requiring nearly all new cars and trucks by 2029 to have advanced automatic emergency braking systems. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would delay the effective date to March 20 to give the new Trump administration time to further review the regulation.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, representing General Motors, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen and other automakers, last week filed suit to block the rule, saying the regulation is "practically impossible with available technology." The group asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn the rule, saying the requirement that cars and trucks must be able to stop and avoid striking vehicles in front of them at up to 62 miles per hour (100 kph) is unrealistic. It unsuccessfully asked NHTSA last year to reconsider the rule. Come 2029, all cars sold in the U.S. "must be able to stop and avoid contact with a vehicle in front of them at speeds up to 62 mph," reports Car and Driver."

"Additionally, the system must be able to detect pedestrians in both daylight and darkness. As a final parameter, the federal standard will require the system to apply the brakes automatically up to 90 mph when a collision is imminent, and up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected."

According to the NHTSA, the rule will save at least 360 lives annually and prevent more than 24,000 injuries.

US President Donald Trump blasted European Union regulators for targeting Apple, Alphabet's Google and Meta, describing theircases against American companies as "a form of taxation." From a report: The EU has established a reputation globally for its aggressive regulation of major technology companies, often sparring with major social media platforms, such as Facebook and X, over content moderation, and the likes of Apple and Google over antitrust concerns. "These are American companies whether you like it or not," Trump said in comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"They shouldn't be doing that. That's, as far as I'm concerned, a form of taxation. We have some very big complaints with the EU." Trump specifically referenced a court case that Apple lost last year over a $14.4 billion Irish tax bill. The EU's Court of Justice in Luxembourg backed a landmark 2016 decision that Ireland broke state-aid law by giving Apple an unfair advantage, requiring Ireland to claw back the money that had been sitting in an escrow account pending the final ruling.

A federal district court has ruled that backdoor searches of Americans' private communications collected under Section 702 of FISA are unconstitutional without a warrant. "The landmark ruling comes in a criminal case, United States v. Hasbajrami, after more than a decade of litigation, and over four years since the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that backdoor searches constitute 'separate Fourth Amendment events' and directed the district court to determine a warrant was required," reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "Now, that has been officially decreed." Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares the report: Hasbajrami involves a U.S. resident who was arrested at New York JFK airport in 2011 on his way to Pakistan and charged with providing material support to terrorists. Only after his original conviction did the government explain that its case was premised in part on emails between Mr. Hasbajrami and an unnamed foreigner associated with terrorist groups, emails collected warrantless using Section 702 programs, placed in a database, then searched, again without a warrant, using terms related to Mr. Hasbajrami himself.

The district court found that regardless of whether the government can lawfully warrantlessly collect communications between foreigners and Americans using Section 702, it cannot ordinarily rely on a "foreign intelligence exception" to the Fourth Amendment's warrant clause when searching these communications, as is the FBI's routine practice. And, even if such an exception did apply, the court found that the intrusion on privacy caused by reading our most sensitive communications rendered these searches "unreasonable" under the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In 2021 alone, the FBI conducted 3.4 million warrantless searches of US person's 702 data.

LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers alleging the platform disclosed private messages to third parties without consent to train generative AI models. The lawsuit seeks damages for breach of contract and privacy violations, accusing LinkedIn of attempting to minimize scrutiny over its actions. Reuters reports: According to a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data. Customers said LinkedIn then discreetly updated its privacy policy on Sept. 18 to say data could be used to train AI models, and in a "frequently asked questions" hyperlink said opting out "does not affect training that has already taken place."

This attempt to "cover its tracks" suggests LinkedIn was fully aware it violated customers' privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimize public scrutiny and legal fallout, the complaint said. The lawsuit was filed in the San Jose, California, federal court on behalf of LinkedIn Premium customers who sent or received InMail messages, and whose private information was disclosed to third parties for AI training before Sept. 18. It seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract and violations of California's unfair competition law, and $1,000 per person for violations of the federal Stored Communications Act. LinkedIn said in a statement: "These are false claims with no merit."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Meta is among a long list of companies being sued for allegedly using pirated material to train its AI models. Meta has never denied using copyrighted works but stressed that it would rely on a fair use defense. However, with rightsholders in one case asking for torrent client data and 'seeding lists' for millions of books allegedly shared in public, the case now takes a geeky turn. [...] A few weeks ago, the plaintiffs asked for permission to submit a third amended complaint (PDF). After uncovering Meta's use of BitTorrent to source copyright-infringing training data from pirate shadow library, LibGen, the request was justified, they argued. Specifically, the authors say that Meta willingly used BitTorrent to download pirated books from LibGen, knowing that was legally problematic. As a result, Meta allegedly shared copies of these books with other people, as is common with the use of BitTorrent.

"By downloading through the bit torrent protocol, Meta knew it was facilitating further copyright infringement by acting as a distribution point for other users of pirated books," the amended complaint notes. "Put another way, by opting to use a bit torrent system to download LibGen's voluminous collection of pirated books, Meta 'seeded' pirated books to other users worldwide." Meta believed that the allegations weren't sufficiently new to warrant an update to the complaint. The company argued that it was already a well-known fact that it used books from these third-party sources, including LibGen. However, the authors maintained that the 'torrent' angle is novel and important enough to warrant an update. Last week, United States District Judge Vince Chhabria agreed, allowing the introduction of these new allegations. In addition to greenlighting the amended complaint, the Judge also allowed the authors to conduct further testimony on the "seeding" angle. "[E]vidence about seeding is relevant to the existing claim because it is potentially relevant to the plaintiffs' assertion of willful infringement or to Meta's fair use defense," Judge Chhabria wrote last week.

With the court recognizing the relevance of Meta's torrenting activity, the plaintiffs requested reconsideration of an earlier order, where discovery on BitTorrent-related matters was denied. Through a filing submitted last Wednesday, the plaintiffs hope to compel Meta to produce its BitTorrent logs and settings, including peer lists and seeding data. "The Order denied Plaintiffs' motion to compel production of torrenting data, including Meta's BitTorrent client, application logs, and peer lists. This data will evidence how much content Meta torrented from shadow libraries and how much it seeded to third parties as a host of this stolen IP," they write. While archiving lists of seeders is not a typical feature for a torrent client, the authors are requesting Meta to disclose any relevant data. In addition, they also want the court to reconsider its ruling regarding the crime-fraud exception. That's important, they suggest, as Meta's legal counsel was allegedly involved in matters related to torrenting. "Meta, with the involvement of in-house counsel, decided to obtain copyrighted works without permission from online databases of copyrighted works that 'we know to be pirated, such as LibGen," they write. The authors allege that this involved "seeding" files and that Meta attempted to "conceal its actions" by limiting the amount of data shared with the public. One Meta employee also asked for guidance, as "torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn't feel right."

CNN reports: TikTok appears to be coming back online just hours after President-elect Donald Trump pledged Sunday that he would sign an executive order Monday that aims to restore the banned app. Around 12 hours after first shutting itself down, U.S. users began to have access to TikTok on a web browser and in the app, although the page still showed a warning about the shutdown.
The brief outage was "the first time in history the U.S. government has outlawed a widely popular social media network," reports NPR. Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores. (And Apple also removed Lemon8).

The incoming president announced his pending executive order "in a post on his Truth Social account," reports the Associated Press, "as millions of TikTok users in the U.S. awoke to discover they could no longer access the TikTok app or platform."

But two Republican Senators said Sunday that the incoming president doesn't have the power to pause the TikTok ban. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Peter Ricketts of Nebraska posted on X.com that "Now that the law has taken effect, there's no legal basis for any kind of 'extension' of its effective date. For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale... severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China. Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posted to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok."

The Associated Press reports that the incoming president offered this rationale for the reprieve in his Truth Social post. "Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations." The law gives the sitting president authority to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale is underway. Although investors made a few offers, ByteDance previously said it would not sell. In his post on Sunday, Trump said he "would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture," but it was not immediately clear if he was referring to the government or an American company...

"A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.," a pop-up message informed users who opened the TikTok app and tried to scroll through videos on Saturday night. "Unfortunately that means you can't use TikTok for now." The service interruption TikTok instituted hours earlier caught most users by surprise. Experts had said the law as written did not require TikTok to take down its platform, only for app stores to remove it. Current users had been expected to continue to have access to videos until the app stopped working due to a lack of updates... "We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned," read the pop-up message...

Apple said the apps would remain on the devices of people who already had them installed, but in-app purchases and new subscriptions no longer were possible and that operating updates to iPhones and iPads might affect the apps' performance.

In the nine months since Congress passed the sale-or-ban law, no clear buyers emerged, and ByteDance publicly insisted it would not sell TikTok. But Trump said he hoped his administration could facilitate a deal to "save" the app. TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump's inauguration with a prime seating location. Chew posted a video late Saturday thanking Trump for his commitment to work with the company to keep the app available in the U.S. and taking a "strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship...."

On Saturday, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok's U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter...
The article adds that TikTok "does not operate in China, where ByteDance instead offers Douyin, the Chinese sibling of TikTok that follows Beijing's strict censorship rules."

Sunday morning Republican House speaker Mike Johnson offered his understanding of Trump's planned executive order, according to Politico. Speaking on Meet the Press, Johnson said "the way we read that is that he's going to try to force along a true divestiture, changing of hands, the ownership.

"It's not the platform that members of Congress are concerned about. It's the Chinese Communist Party and their manipulation of the algorithms."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader ArchieBunker for sharing the news.

"The FDIC sued 17 former executives and directors of Silicon Valley Bank on Thursday, seeking to recover billions of dollars for alleged gross negligence and breaches of fiduciary duty," reports Reuters. The move comes almost two years after Silicon Valley Bank's March 2023 collapse, which shocked financial markets and ended up benefiting big players like JPMorgan Chase. From the report: In a complaint filed in San Francisco federal court, the FDIC, in its capacity the bank's receiver, said the defendants ignored fundamental standards of prudent banking and the bank's own risk policies in letting the bank take on excessive risks to boost short-term profit and its stock price. The FDIC faulted the bank's overreliance on unhedged, interest rate-sensitive long-term government bonds such as US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, as rates looked set to -- and eventually did -- rise. It also objected to the payment of a "grossly imprudent" $294 million dividend to its parent that drained needed capital "at a time of financial distress and management weakness" in December 2022, less than three months before its demise.

"SVB represents a case of egregious mismanagement of interest-rate and liquidity risks by the bank's former officers and directors," the complaint said. The defendants include former Chief Executive Gregory Becker, former Chief Financial Officer Daniel Beck, four other former executives and 11 former directors.

Longtime Slashdot reader tlhIngan writes: In what is perhaps the greatest irony ever, the operators of RedNote (known as Xiaohongshu) have decided to "wall off" US TikTok refugees fleeing to its service as the TikTok ban looms. The reason? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to prevent American influence from spreading to Chinese citizens. The ban is expected to be in place next week, while many believe that the influx of Americans to be temporary and just a reaction to the TikTok ban to move to another Chinese app. Many Chinese users are not happy with the influx as having "ruined" their ability to connect with "Chinese culture, Chinese values and Chinese news."

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok beginning Sunday unless it's sold by its China-based parent company, holding that the risk to national security posed by its ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the United States.

A sale does not appear imminent and, although experts have said the app will not disappear from existing users' phones once the law takes effect on Jan. 19, new users won't be able to download it and updates won't be available. That will eventually render the app unworkable, the Justice Department has said in court filings.

Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin reports: AT&T has stopped offering its 5G home Internet service in New York instead of complying with a new state law that requires ISPs to offer $15 or $20 plans to people with low incomes. New York started enforcing its Affordable Broadband Act yesterday after a legal battle of nearly four years. [...] The law requires ISPs with over 20,000 customers in New York to offer $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds. The plans only have to be offered to households that meet income eligibility requirements, such as qualifying for the National School Lunch Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Medicaid. [...]

Ending home Internet service in New York is relatively simple for AT&T because it is outside the 21-state wireline territory in which the telco offers fiber and DSL home Internet service. "AT&T Internet Air is currently available only in select areas and where AT&T Fiber is not available. New York is outside of our wireline service footprint, so we do not have other home Internet options available in the state," the company said. AT&T will continue offering its 4G and 5G mobile service in New York, as the state law only affects home Internet service. People with smartphones or other mobile devices connected to the AT&T wireless network should thus see no change.

Existing New York-based users of AT&T Internet Air can only keep it for 45 days and won't be charged during that time, AT&T said. "During this transition, customers will be able to keep their existing AT&T Internet Air service for up to 45 days, at no charge, as they find other options for broadband. We will work closely with our customers throughout this transition," AT&T said. Residential users will be sent "a recovery kit with instructions on how to return their AIA equipment, while business customers can keep any device they purchased at no charge," AT&T said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Toyota Motor unit Hino Motors has agreed a $1.6 billion settlement with U.S. agencies and will plead guilty over excess diesel engine emissions in more than 105,000 U.S. vehicles, the company and U.S. government said on Wednesday. The Japanese truck and engine manufacturer was charged with fraud in U.S. District Court in Detroit for unlawfully selling 105,000 heavy-duty diesel engines in the United States from 2010 through 2022 that did not meet emissions standards. The settlement, which still must be approved by a U.S. judge, includes a criminal penalty of $521.76 million, $442.5 million in civil penalties to U.S. authorities and $236.5 million to California.

A company-commissioned panel said in a report in 2022 Hino had falsified emissions data on some engines going back to at least 2003. Hino agreed to plead guilty to engaging in a multi-year criminal conspiracy and serve a five-year term of probation, during which it will be barred from importing any diesel engines it has manufactured into the U.S., and carry out a comprehensive compliance and ethics program, the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency said. [...] The settlement includes a mitigation program, valued at $155 million, to offset excess air emissions from the violations by replacing marine and locomotive engines, and a recall program, valued at $144.2 million, to fix engines in 2017-2019 heavy-duty trucks

The EPA said Hino admitted that between 2010 and 2019, it submitted false applications for engine certification approvals and altered emission test data, conducted tests improperly and fabricated data without conducting any underlying tests. Hino President Satoshi Ogiso said the company had improved its internal culture, oversight and compliance practices. "This resolution is a significant milestone toward resolving legacy issues that we have worked hard to ensure are no longer a part of Hino's operations or culture," he said in a statement. Toyota's Hino Motors isn't the only automaker to admit to selling vehicles with excess diesel emissions. Volkswagen had to pay billions in fines after it admitted in 2015 to cheating emissions tests by installing "defeat devices" and sophisticated software in nearly 11 million vehicles worldwide. Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), BMW, Opel/Vauxhall (General Motors), and Fiat Chrysler have been implicated in similar practices.