CNBC: Google stacks its legal team with former DOJ employees as it faces antitrust cases. “Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has stacked its legal team with former Department of Justice employees as it fights two separate antitrust lawsuits from the agency, public profiles show.”
CNN: DOJ sues Google over its dominance in online advertising market. “The Justice Department and eight states sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of harming competition with its dominance in the online advertising market and calling for it to be broken up. The move marks the Biden administration’s first blockbuster antitrust case against a Big Tech company. The eight states joining the suit include California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.”
MarketWatch: Feds poised to file another antitrust suit against Google this week: report. “The U.S. Justice Department is preparing to sue Alphabet Inc. in the coming days over its dominance in the online ad market, according to a report late Monday. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported the antitrust suit is expected to be filed in federal court before the end of this week, and as soon as Tuesday.”
WIRED: Algorithms Allegedly Penalized Black Renters. The US Government Is Watching. “SafeRent had argued that algorithms used to screen tenants aren’t subject to the Fair Housing Act, because its scores only advise landlords and don’t make decisions. The DOJ’s brief, filed jointly with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, dismisses that claim, saying the act and associated case law leave no ambiguity.”
Politico: DOJ antitrust chief cleared to oversee Google probes. “The Justice Department has cleared antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter to oversee investigations and litigation involving Google, potentially paving the way for him to lead a federal antitrust case challenging the search giant’s dominance of the online advertising market, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.”
Bloomberg: DOJ Is Preparing to Sue Google Over Ad Market as Soon as September. “The US Justice Department is preparing to sue Google as soon as next month, according to people familiar with the matter, capping years of work to build a case that the Alphabet Inc. unit illegally dominates the digital advertising market.”
JD Supra: DOJ Issues Website Accessibility Guidance – Key Questions Remain Unanswered. “Almost twelve years after it first proposed to issue website accessibility regulations, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on March 18, 2022, published ‘Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA.’ The new nonregulatory guidance offers little assistance to the business community on the two undecided questions that have fueled the ever-rising volume of litigation: whether and under what circumstances commercial websites need to be made accessible and what it means to be accessible.”
TechCrunch: Justice Department indicts 80 individuals in a massive business email scam bust. “The Justice Department has indicted dozens of individuals accused of involvement in a massive business email scam and money laundering scheme. Thom Mrozek, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of California, confirmed more than a dozen individuals had been arrested during raids on Thursday — mostly in the Los Angeles area. A total of 80 defendants are allegedly involved in the scheme.”
BloombergQuint: DOJ Scrutinizes Google Advertising, Search in Antitrust Probe. “The Justice Department is scrutinizing Google’s digital advertising and search operations as authorities gear up a broad antitrust review of the market power of giant internet companies, according to people familiar with the matter.”
The Register: Sorry, we haven’t ACLU what happened in sealed ‘Facebook decryption’ case, but let’s find out. “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a motion to find out what went on in a court case in which the US Department of Justice allegedly tried to make Facebook give it unencrypted access to Messenger calls.”
FCW: DOJ launches one-stop shop for FOIA requests. “The Department of Justice launched its one-stop shop for users to submit online Freedom of Information Act requests across government. The FOIA process has long been criticized as frustrating and even broken, and the number of FOIA requests spiked during fiscal year 2016 before reaching an all-time high in fiscal year 2017.”
US DOJ: United States Files Civil Action To Forfeit Thousands Of Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby. “Earlier today, the United States filed a civil complaint to forfeit thousands of cuneiform tablets and clay bullae. As alleged in the complaint, these ancient clay artifacts originated in the area of modern-day Iraq and were smuggled into the United States through the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, contrary to federal law. Packages containing the artifacts were shipped to Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (‘Hobby Lobby’), a nationwide arts-and-crafts retailer based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and two of Hobby Lobby’s corporate affiliates. The shipping labels on these packages falsely described cuneiform tablets as tile ‘samples.'” I am so mad about this.
Microsoft is preparing to go head-to-head with the Justice Department in court. “The case, known as Microsoft v. Department of Justice began in 2016 when Microsoft sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) to challenge a part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) under which the government serves warrants to tech companies. The lawsuit is targeting the constitutionality of accompanying gag orders that prevent tech companies from notifying their users that the federal government is investigating their data.”
