Amazon illegally charged parents for in-app purchases made by children without getting parents' informed consent, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, granting a summary judgment to the FTC, which filed a lawsuit against the company in July 2014. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle rejected Amazon's arguments that its customers were familiar with the company's procedures to avoid in-app purchases -- which are charges made inside an app typically downloaded for free -- or they could have pursued refunds. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez in a statement Tuesday announcing the judgment said that "we look forward to making a case for full refunds to consumers as a result of Amazon's actions." The commission had pursued similar cases against Apple and Google (see 1409050102). The judgment, which was redacted heavily in certain areas, didn't list FTC's calculated consumer damages, which Amazon said were "untimely and/or speculative," but Coughenour asked from both parties information about how much the company owes consumers in relief. He said customers "were never aware that they had made an in-app purchase" given the App Store's design and procedures for in-app purchases. He said it was "unreasonable to expect customers to be familiar with the potential to accrue in-app purchases while using apps labeled as 'FREE.'" Amazon said customers could have avoided charges through parental controls, said the judgment. But Coughenour wrote that Amazon's "stated policy" wasn't to provide refunds for in-app purchases "so many customers would have reasonably believed such recourse was not available to them." The time they spend trying to get a refund also "constitutes additional injury," he said. Amazon started charging customers beginning November 2011 but started receiving numerous complaints from parents, the judgment said. Amazon didn't comment. However, TechFreedom President Berin Szoka said in a statement that "if this decision stands, the web's going to get a lot less user-friendly and a lot more ugly." The decision gives the FTC "sweeping powers as a nanny-state censor of interface design decisions," he said. The court ceded responsibility to check commission discretion, he added.

Former Epix Chief Digital Officer Emil Rensing was charged with defrauding his former employer of more than $8 million, in a federal indictment announced Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan. The U.S. Attorney's Office said Rensing, 42, of Manhattan, used his position to have the company contract with two vendor companies he owned for various digital media services they never performed. The indictment also said the vendor personnel designated in the contracts often were former associates or partners of Rensing, but they had never heard of the vendors and were unaware of their names being used on the contracts. The indictment never names Rensing's employer, but his LinkedIn profile says he was with Epix during the five years in question, April 2010-August 2015. In a statement, Epix said Rensing was terminated by the company then and it's "cooperating fully" with the investigation. The U.S. Attorney's Office said he's charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a 20-year maximum sentence, and one count of aggravated identity theft, which carries a maximum of two years. Rensing couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday

An FTC lawsuit against DirecTV is heading to settlement proceedings, said U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam of San Francisco in an order (in Pacer) Wednesday referring the case to Chief Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero. The agency sued Dish in 2015, alleging it wasn't properly communicating early cancelation fees that subscribers face if they sign up and then quit the service before two years (see 1503110042).

Uber drivers settled two major class-action lawsuits in California and Massachusetts against the company that will pay up to $100 million to drivers, who will remain independent contractors. Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick said in a press release Thursday the company will pay $84 million to plaintiffs and pay another $16 million if Uber goes public and its valuation increases to a certain level. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco must still approve the settlement, which avoided a June 20 trial. Drivers sued because they said they were misclassified as independent contractors and required to pay business expenses such as gas and maintenance for their vehicles, and were also denied total proceeds of gratuities that the company advertised as being included in the fare, the California complaint said. "We believe these to be very significant changes that will improve work conditions for Uber drivers," Shannon Liss-Riordan and Adelaide Pagano, the drivers' attorneys in both cases, said in a statement on their firm's Website for the Uber case. For instance, Uber can't fire drivers at will or for low acceptance rates, but only terminate them for "sufficient cause," they said. Uber will also establish appeal panels composed of "highly rated drivers" to hear concerns from drivers, who think they were "unjustly" fired, and help create a "Driver Association" to bring drivers' concerns to management, the attorneys said. Uber will also make clear to riders that tips aren't included in fares, the attorneys said. Some drivers could receive $8,000 or more from the settlement, they said. Uber's Kalanick said almost 90 percent of drivers who choose to work for the company want to remain independent. "That said, as Uber has grown -- over 450,000 drivers use the app each month here in the U.S. -- we haven’t always done a good job working with drivers," he said. For instance, he said, Uber published a driver deactivation policy for the first time in the U.S. and will roll out similar ones globally.

Dish Network and broadcasters China Central TV (CCTV) and TVB Holdings are suing HTV International (HTVI), the maker of the h.TV set-top box, for pirating CCTV and TVB TV programming. In a 32-page suit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York, they allege h.TV set-top subscribers, after a one-time payment of up to $300 for the box, receive unlicensed signals from China, Hong Kong and other nations, with Dish having some rights to TVB distribution in the U.S. h.TV's "massive piracy" works through a peer-to-peer network, with some h.TV users not only receiving programming streams but also retransmitting those streams to other h.TV users, according to the suit. The plaintiffs also allege HTVI has "gone to great lengths to conceal ... infringing activity" by claiming it has no role in the third-party h.TV apps that allow users to access and share the infringing content, but those app developers don't exist "or are controlled by HTVI," and the company is directly responsible for the capturing of CCTV and TVB broadcasts and development and dissemination of the apps. In the suit, the plaintiffs seek a permanent injunction from transmitting or distributing CCTV and TVB programming or selling an h.TV device that offers that programming, plus unspecified damages. HTVI didn't comment.

The federal government's renewed application to force Apple to open a locked iPhone seized in a New York drug investigation is trying to "obscure" an "inconvenient fact" that Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in New York's Eastern District has already "soundly rejected" DOJ's previous legal argument in the case, the company said in a filing (in Pacer) Friday. In February, Orenstein denied the government's motion to get Apple's help with the device, saying the "government's interpretation of the breadth of authority the [All Writs Act] confers on courts of limited jurisdiction thus raises serious doubts about how such a statute could withstand constitutional scrutiny under the separation-of-powers doctrine" (see 1603010013). The government appealed and resubmitted its application (see 1604080064). Apple said it's unclear whether the evidence in the iPhone has any value and the defendant in the case already pleaded guilty. Apple also questioned whether its assistance is necessary since the DOJ withdrew a similar motion in a case involving an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California, mass shooters. "As a preliminary matter, the government has utterly failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that Apple's assistance in this case is necessary -- a prerequisite to compelling third party assistance under the All Writs Act," Apple said in the motion. The company asked the court to reject DOJ's "overarching and unsupported" interpretation of the act and deny the application.

Centralizing the various privacy complaints against Vizio in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California (see 1602260059), “will serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of this litigation,” the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said in an April 7 transfer order (in Pacer). Nearly two dozen complaints have been filed against Vizio, all seeking class-action status on allegations that Vizio’s Inscape smart TV viewer-tracking feature violates the federal Video Privacy Protection Act. The judicial panel was “persuaded” that the Santa Ana federal court “is the appropriate transferee district for this litigation” because Vizio and most of the plaintiffs support moving the cases there, the order said. Vizio’s headquarters in Irvine, California, also are within the court’s jurisdiction, it said: “Thus, the district is a convenient and accessible forum, relatively close to potential witnesses and evidence.”

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a petition for hearing en banc filed by Texas lawyer/plaintiff Larry Polsky seeking a rehearing of his consumer complaint against Dish Network. In its order (in Pacer) Wednesday, the three-judge panel said no member of the panel nor judge in active service sought a poll. The 5th Circuit in March upheld a previous U.S. District Court in Houston summary judgment tossing out Polsky's consumer complaint against Dish, calling his claims frivolous (see 1603030026). Polsky didn't comment Thursday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused its review of Flo & Eddie's lawsuit against Sirius XM Wednesday, sending the case to the New York Court of Appeals so that court can definitively rule on whether New York law recognizes a public performance right for pre-1972 sound recordings and the scope of the state's law. The status of pre-1972 sound recordings under New York law constitutes a “significant and unresolved issue” of state law that “is determinative” in the 2nd Circuit's eventual decision on Sirius XM's appeal of the case, said Judge Guido Calabresi in the three-judge 2nd Circuit panel's ruling. Sirius XM was appealing a 2014 U.S. District Court in New York decision in favor of Flo & Eddie's lawsuit against the company. Flo & Eddie, who own the copyright to “Happy Together” and the rest of The Turtles' music library, have sought back performance royalties on The Turtles' pre-1972 recordings. NAB, Pandora and other groups supporting Sirius XM have questioned whether New York common law includes a performance right for pre-1972 recordings, something that doesn't exist in federal law (see 1508060052). New York's “interest in compensating copyright holders may perhaps outweigh the cost of making such a change,” the 2nd Circuit said. “Whatever the merits of such a determination might be as a value judgment, however, it is a value judgment, which is for New York to make.”

U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the District of Columbia lifted her stay on recording industry motions to reconsider and clarify her Feb. 19 opinion that the automotive hard drives marketed by Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and their suppliers are excluded from the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) because they bear computer programs or data that are "unrelated" to the audio content on those hard drives (see 1604060059). An Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) complaint alleges the automakers should be liable for back royalties under the AHRA because the CD-copying hard drives in their vehicle infotainment systems fall within the scope of the 1992 statute. The automakers denied the allegations. Jackson gave the automakers until April 28 to file a joint brief in opposition to AARC’s motions to reconsider and clarify, and gave AARC until May 16 to reply, her April 7 order (in Pacer) said.