The Biden administration urged a court Friday not to grant expedited discovery to Missouri and Louisiana in their suit claiming the administration colluded with social media platforms to censor and suppress truthful information (see 2205050056). In its response at the U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana (case 3:22-cv-01213-TAD-KDM), the administration said it plans to file a motion to dismiss. Don't allow states to take discovery before defendants can respond to the complaint, it said. "The Court must first address whether it has jurisdiction before this matter may proceed at all. … Expedited discovery is rare, and is authorized only when a party shows that it has a pressing need.” States “make little effort to show that they will suffer irreparable harm (or in fact any harm) absent expedited discovery.” It would go against federal civil procedure rules to require the U.S. defendants "to respond to an unspecified number of interrogatories and document requests, and potentially prepare for depositions, on a compressed timeline,” it said. Missouri and Louisiana seek a "a sweeping preliminary injunction that would have the perverse effect of suppressing public officials’ speech on matters of public concern,” and multiple courts including the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed similar claims “for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction,” the administration said. “Although social media companies have been taking action against what they have deemed to be misinformation for years -- since before this Administration began,” plaintiffs here and in other cases insist “that the actions they were subject to were attributable … to certain comments made by Government officials about the harms of misinformation.” But courts “uniformly dismissed those challenges, concluding that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing because their allegations did not show that the challenged actions were caused by any Government actor rather than the independent judgments of social media companies.”

The federal government charged six defendants in four separate criminal cases for their alleged involvement in cryptocurrency fraud, DOJ said Thursday. They were charged in cases involving “the largest known Non-Fungible Token (NFT) scheme charged to date, a fraudulent investment fund that purportedly traded on cryptocurrency exchanges, a global Ponzi scheme involving the sale of unregistered crypto securities, and a fraudulent initial coin offering,” DOJ said. The Justice Department joined with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security in the enforcement action.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco met Thursday with retail CEOs at the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) annual summit in Washington, where she cautioned them to be “mindful” about the “blended threat” of sophisticated "cyber-criminal groups" and "nation-state actors" forming “alliances of convenience,” said a DOJ readout Friday. She encouraged retailers to bolster their cyber defenses and "proactively develop" relationships with their local FBI field offices, it said. Monaco also addressed “organized retail crime” with the CEOs, including how U.S. attorneys across the country are bringing federal charges to punish and thwart “aggravated retail theft,” said DOJ. Retailers "appreciated the opportunity to discuss a number of high priority issues with Deputy AG Monaco, including cybersecurity," emailed RILA President Brian Dodge. "We appreciate the department’s attention to organized retail crime and the role they are playing investigating and prosecuting large cases," he said. RILA represents Best Buy, Target, Walmart and other big-box retailers.

Wi-Fi fraud is among the most common summer scams consumers need to look out for, warned U.S. Attorney Dena King of the Western District of North Carolina in tips Wednesday. During the summer, many people are on the go, and with more and more businesses, restaurants and venues offering free Wi-Fi access, “it is easy to become a victim” of Wi-Fi fraud, she said. Fraudsters typically use what appears to be legitimate free Wi-Fi “to dupe users into connecting to networks that can steal their information,” said King. Free Wi-Fi networks "are generally unsecured," she said. "To the extent possible, avoid using them altogether, but definitely avoid using them to transmit sensitive information or conduct financial transactions.” Summer is a popular time “for scammers to maximize their profits by preying on consumers trying to save money on a good summer deal,” she said.

Napster Music’s newly published Litepaper V1 outlines plans to apply Web3 technology to its existing business and “millions of users,” it said Wednesday. The company created a new entity, Napster Innovation Foundation, to issue "$NAPSTER tokens using the Algorand blockchain protocol to streamline its existing platform functionality" and create new options for monetization. "We’re entering the streaming-plus era of music," said Napster interim CEO Emmy Lovell, saying streaming music is "one of the few scaled business sectors where adoption of blockchain tech actually makes immediate sense for everyone." Web3 has a chance to “deepen, extend and improve the music ecosystem," she said. Napster 3.0 will launch as a decentralized, music-first ecosystem benefiting fans, music makers and rights holders, said the company.

Google should clarify search results that steer individuals looking for abortion services to anti-abortion clinics, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) wrote the company Wednesday. Google Maps fails to distinguish between abortion clinics and crisis pregnancy centers, she said: The latter don’t offer abortion services, often don’t have medical professionals, and try to dissuade people from having abortions. It’s important to clarify the distinction due to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, she wrote.

Stitcher Media held the top spot in May in Triton Digital’s U.S. podcast report with 59.6 million average weekly downloads and 14.8 million average weekly users, said the metrics firm Monday. NPR was second with 32.2 million average weekly downloads and 6.6 million average weekly users, followed by Audacy with 29.5 million and 7.7 million, respectively. The top 20 publishers had over 228 million weekly downloads in the month. By genre, news was the most downloaded category (27.1%), followed by true crime (20.3%), comedy (17.6%), society and culture (7.1%), and sports (6.3%). Most downloads occurred on mobile devices (93.1%); 1.8% occurred on a desktop or laptop, Triton said.

The state of Florida and tech groups have agreed to request a stay in the industry’s lawsuit against Florida’s social media law and for the Supreme Court to review a 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the case, NetChoice said Friday (see 2206170033). NetChoice cited the Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate an injunction against a similar law in Texas as foreshadowing of a ruling on the merits in Florida. That led to an agreement among NetChoice, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and Florida to request the stay, the association said: Florida will “file a petition for cert with the Supreme Court. And rather than oppose the petition, we will support the State’s request and likely file our own request, asking the Court to also review the transparency requirements.” The petition is due in the late summer, and the court can act on it when it chooses, NetChoice said. The court’s injunction will remain in place.

The former owner of e-commerce platform CafePress will pay $500,000 to settle allegations it failed to “secure consumers’ sensitive personal data and covered up a major breach” in 2019, the FTC said Friday, finalizing an order announced in March (see 2203150081). The commission voted 5-0 to finalize orders with Residual Pumpkin, the former owner of CafePress, and PlanetArt, which bought CafePress in 2020. The agreement requires PlanetArt to bolster its data security and requires the former owner to pay $500,000 to compensate small businesses affected by the breach.

EBay closed a deal to buy KnownOrigin, a non-fungible token marketplace, for an undisclosed sum. KnownOrigin enables artists and collectors to create, buy and resell NFTs via blockchain-support transactions, said eBay Wednesday. EBay began allowing the buying and selling of NFTs in May 2021, and buying KnownOrigin gives it further access to an audience of digital collectors, it said.