Google remains committed to “investing to build the most helpful, most trusted search experience,” said CEO Sundar Pichai Thursday about DOJ’s Oct. 20 lawsuit over Google’s alleged monopoly in general search services and search advertising (see 2010200058). “We believe that our products are creating significant consumer benefits and will confidently make our case,” said Pichai on a Q3 investor call. “Our company's focus remains on continuing our work to build a search product that people love and value.” Google is “not new” to regulatory “scrutiny,” said the CEO. “What's in our control is our ability to relentlessly focus on users and build great products, and that's where most of our energy will go.” The DOJ lawsuit (see 2010300027) is in its “early days, and we're still reviewing and understanding it all,” he said. “I'm sure we'll update more as time goes by.”

DOJ can’t yet say whether additional states will join and expand the scope of an antitrust case against Google, DOJ attorney Kenneth Dintzer told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Friday. Judge Amit Mehta held a status conference between DOJ and Google, in which the two sides established several filing dates. There’s “nothing concrete one way or another that I could speak about publicly at this time,” said Dintzer. “I don’t want to answer the court that I don’t know, but I don’t have anything concrete enough for me to provide a public answer on that.” Democratic state attorneys general have suggested they could join the case (see 2010200058). Mehta set a Nov. 6 deadline for the two sides to file status reports on a protective order in the case, a Nov. 13 deadline for the defense to indicate whether it plans to move to dismiss or answer DOJ’s complaint, and a Nov. 20 deadline for initial disclosures. The parties agreed to a Nov. 18 status conference to follow up on Friday’s items. Mehta disclosed a few of his relationships relevant to the case: His first cousin works as a Google engineer, and a close friend previously worked as a Google executive. Mehta doesn’t see them as conflicting or problematic, so he won't recuse himself from the case. Google is eager to review DOJ investigative materials, said Google attorney John Schmidtlein, who requested a Nov. 13 deadline for initial disclosures. The material will help the company formulate a discovery plan, said Schmidtlein. Google remains committed to “investing to build the most helpful, most trusted search experience,” CEO Sundar Pichai said Friday (see 2010300021).

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied (in Pacer) the FTC’s request for an en banc rehearing in its antitrust case against Qualcomm (see 2009250068). A brief order was filed Wednesday by Judges Consuelo Callahan, Johnnie Rawlinson and Stephen Murphy. “The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc and no judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear,” the denial said. The agency declined comment. “That not one judge on the Ninth Circuit thought it necessary to consider the merits of the FTC’s petition or to even ask for a response from Qualcomm validates the strength and clarity of the panel’s thorough analysis and conclusions,” said Qualcomm Executive Vice President Donald Rosenberg in a statement.

Apple intentionally embedded iOS version 13 last year with a “consuming code” for “its own undisclosed purposes and its own benefit,” causing iPhone users to deplete their monthly data allowances without their knowledge and face “exorbitant” overage fees from their carriers, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Saturday in U.S. District Court in San Jose that seeks class-action status. “Apple has the ability to correctly identify and account for all mobile data usage by its numerous operating system features,” said the complaint. The iPhone maker instead “tried to hide the massive data usage” by “miscategorizing it in a way that many users would not discern,” it said, in violation of California consumer protection and unfair competition laws. “Apple knew what it was doing, and it tried to keep users from discovering the amount of money Apple was costing them. Apple also deliberately withheld from users the ability to control the costs.” The suit identifies the potential class as all who installed iOS 13 on their iPhones before Apple released version 13.6 in June, eliminating the consuming code. Apple didn’t comment Monday.

The FTC appealed for 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals en banc review of its antitrust case against Qualcomm (see 2008190043). Siding with Qualcomm, the court “blesses the continued stifling of competition in multi-billion-dollar markets for cellular-communications chips on which much of the digital economy depends,” the FTC filed Friday (in Pacer). The three-judge panel disregarded precedent by “elevating patent-law labels over economic substance,” by “holding that facially ‘neutral’ fees cannot violate” antitrust law, saying “harms to Qualcomm’s customers are ‘beyond the scope of antitrust law’ and demanding a showing of ‘direct’ harm to competitors," the FTC said. The errors “cast doubt on fundamental matters of antitrust principle and will encourage monopolists to cloak anticompetitive practices beneath false invocations of patent law,” the agency wrote. The company didn’t comment.

Use of YouTube's Content ID "requires far greater care and candor" than composer Maria Schneider and Pirate Monitor showed in their lawsuit, YouTube's Google said in an answer and counterclaim Monday (in Pacer, docket 20-cv-04423) in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Schneider and Pirate Monitor allege Google's YouTube facilitated piracy by keeping individual artists from being able to access Content ID to prevent piracy of their works. Google said Content ID can easily be misused and Schneider and Pirate Monitor are examples of how. Google said Pirate Monitor's video uploading breached terms of a service agreement. Plaintiffs' counsel didn't comment Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver in Cleveland recused himself Thursday from the trial into allegations that Netflix and Hulu are running streaming services through the public right of way in Maple Heights, Ohio, without proper state authorization and failing to pay 5% quarterly franchise fees to the municipality (see 2008220001). Oliver’s order (in Pacer) gave no reason. The case was reassigned to Judge James Gwin. The complaint seeks class-action status on behalf of all Ohio municipalities.

Netflix wants until Oct. 19 to respond to allegations it’s running streaming services through the public right of way in Maple Heights, Ohio, without paying quarterly 5% fees, as state law requires (see 2008220001), said an unopposed motion (in Pacer) Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland. Co-defendant Hulu didn’t comment. The Aug. 21 complaint seeks class-action status on behalf of Ohio municipalities.

VidAngel's settlement with content companies doesn't negate the need to filter content on streaming platforms, the Parents Television Council said Tuesday. The settlement lets VidAngel emerge from Chapter 11, the company said. It said it won't decrypt, copy, stream or distribute Disney or Warner content without their permission and will pay the two companies $9.9 million over 14 years. That's compared with 2019's $62.4 million jury verdict (see 1906180003). Under the settlement (docket 17-29073, in Pacer) in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Salt Lake City, VidAngel agreed not to lobby to change the Family Movie Act to allow anyone doing filtering to stream or distribute a film without permission. The Parents TV Council said it will keep advocating for legislation extending content filtering to streaming platforms. PTC said the settlement seems to be a content company payment to VidAngel to not share its filtering tech nor lobby.

Though Epic Games depicts itself as “a modern corporate Robin Hood,” eager to steal from the rich and give to the poor, it’s really a “multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store,” alleged an Apple countersuit (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland. After Epic installed an in-app direct-payment system for its Fortnite franchise to break up Apple’s alleged App Store monopolies, Apple retaliated by threatening to cut off Epic’s access to game developer tools, said Epic’s Aug. 13 complaint (see 2008130048). U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted Epic a temporary restraining order Aug. 24 blocking Apple from making good on the threat (see 2008250004). Now Apple wants Epic's direct-payment system taken down. Epic installed it “in the dark hours of the night” Aug. 13 in an “underhanded scheme to breach its agreements and free ride on Apple’s investments” in the App Store, said Apple’s Tuesday countersuit. “Epic’s flagrant disregard for its contractual commitments and other misconduct has caused significant harm to Apple,” it said. “Epic has reaped millions of dollars in in-app purchases through its unauthorized external purchase mechanism,” diverting to itself commissions Apple was entitled to earn under its license agreement, it said. Apple wants the court to declare Epic in breach of contract and seeks a permanent injunction barring the game developer from using its proprietary direct-payment system in the App Store. Epic didn’t comment.