D.C. Circuit Offers Bad News, Good News on Net Neutrality: FCC Repeal Upheld, But States Can Fill the Gap
Users, advocates, and service providers have been waiting for months to find out whether an appellate court will bless the Federal Communications Commission’s effort to repeal net neutrality protections, and whether the FCC can simultaneously force the states to follow suit. The answer: yes, and no. Bound by its interpretation...
EFF to Third Circuit: Off-Campus Student Social Media Posts Entitled to Full First Amendment Protection
Special thanks to legal intern Maria Bacha who was the lead author of this post.EFF, Student Press Law Center (SPLC), Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment (PaCFA), and Brechner Center for Freedom of Information filed an amicus brief in B.L. v. Mahanoy Area School District urging the U.S. Court...
Victory! Ruling in hiQ v. Linkedin Protects Scraping of Public Data
In a long-awaited decision in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that automated scraping of publicly accessible data likely does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). This is an important clarification of the CFAA’s scope, which should provide some...
Americans Deserve Their Day in Court About NSA Mass Surveillance Programs
EFF continues our fight to have the U.S. courts protect you from mass government surveillance. Today in our landmark Jewel v. NSA case, we filed our opening brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, asserting that the courts don’t have to turn a blind eye to the...
Suit Against Pharmacy Groups Uses Antitrust as a Weapon Against Unaccountable Online Censorship
PharmacyChecker.com found itself in a tough spot. The website evaluates online pharmacies, giving people information about how to cheaply and safely import prescription medicines into the U.S. for personal use. A network of other groups, closely aligned with U.S. pharmaceutical companies, is trying to drive Pharmacy Checker off the...
Ninth Circuit Goes a Step Further to Protect Privacy in Border Device Searches
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a new ruling in U.S. v. Cano [.pdf] that offers greater privacy protection for people crossing the border with their electronic devices, but it doesn’t go as far as we sought in our amicus brief.Cano had attempted to...
Second Circuit Rules That Section 230 Bars Civil Terrorism Claims Against Facebook
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last week became the first federal appellate court to rule that Section 230 bars civil terrorism claims against a social media company. The plaintiffs, who were victims of Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, argued that Facebook should be liable...
The FCC Is Siding With Landlords and Comcast Over Tenants Who Want Broadband Choices
In December of 2016, the city of San Francisco boldly enacted the “Occupant’s Right to Choose Communications Services Provider” ordinance (also known as Article 52) that hinders a payola scheme cooked up between big cable companies like Comcast and landlords. In just a few short years since its enactment,...
California’s ISP Deregulation Law Allows Recording VoIP Calls without Consent
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been opposing A.B. 1366, legislation by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, which would renew a law that effectively shields a huge part of the telecommunications industry from state and local regulation. Comcast and AT&T law backed this law, Public Utilities Code Sec. 710, in...
AT&T Sues California to Prevent Oversight Over IP Based 911 Calls Using State Law AT&T Supported and Wants Renewed
The California legislature in 2011 passed a law to remove state and local authority over the broadband access market to “ensure a vibrant and competitive open Internet that allows California's technology businesses to continue to flourish and contribute to economic development throughout the state.” Sounds good, right?But that never happened....
