US District Judge Debra Brown ruled that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA no authority to unilaterally dismiss citizen lawsuits, rejecting an attempt by the Trump administration to intervene on behalf of Musk's SpaceXAI. The NAACP's suit, filed after unpermitted gas turbines were found powering the Colossus data center in Memphis, seeks an injunction requiring pollution controls and penalties of up to $124,426 per day per violation.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-21
A Santa Fe district court judge reduced a potential $219.5 billion jury-calculated fine to a $25 billion penalty against Meta, following a September jury verdict finding the company liable for misleading New Mexico residents about its data collection and safeguarding practices. The jury found more than 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices act, and the judge set the penalty at the maximum $5,000 per violation, with 15% annual interest until paid in full.
cnbc.com
· 2026-10-21
A New Mexico judge ruled that Meta must pay $25 billion in civil penalties after a jury found more than 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices law tied to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The judge calculated the maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation, totaling over $219 billion, before reducing it to $25 billion. Meta's chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney said the company plans to appeal, calling the ruling an attempt to tax speech.
theverge.com
· 2026-10-21
A federal judge has ordered Meta to disclose the names of employees who authorized the company's use of torrenting to download materials from shadow libraries Anna's Archive and Library Genesis, reportedly used to train its AI models. The ruling emerges from ongoing litigation over Meta's data-sourcing practices for AI training.
yro.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-21
A US district judge in the Eastern District of Missouri has dismissed Ann Altman's lawsuit accusing her brother, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, of sexually abusing her between 1997 and 2006. Judge Zachary Bluestone ruled that she failed to pursue the case properly after skipping a court-ordered independent medical examination three times, dismissing the claims with prejudice. Sam Altman has denied the allegations, and his family has said Ann Altman has mental health challenges they have long supported financially.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-10-20
US District Judge Zachary Bluestone dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit Ann Altman filed last year accusing her brother, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, of childhood sexual abuse. The judge cited her failure to attend a court-ordered medical examination and missed deadlines despite prior warnings. The ruling also denied Sam Altman's request to recover attorney fees and costs.
theverge.com
· 2026-10-20
A federal magistrate judge has ordered Meta to disclose which executives and managers authorized the torrenting of books from shadow libraries like Anna's Archive and LibGen for AI training data. The ruling, reported by TorrentFreak, affects a class action from authors including Sarah Silverman and Richard Kadrey, as well as a separate suit from Entrepreneur Media. Meta had argued the downloading occurred through an informal process with no clear decision-maker, a characterization the court rejected.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-20
A project called diorama64, published on GitHub by developer Michael Steil, turns Super Mario 64 into a tabletop-scale diorama viewable through Apple Vision Pro. Players use a game controller while moving around a physical space to view levels like Bob-omb Battlefield and Big Boo's Haunt from any angle, built on existing decompilation work of the original game.
pagetable.com
· 2026-10-19
Law firm Hagens Berman has filed a class-action lawsuit against Verisign and ICANN, alleging the companies maintain an illegal monopoly over .com domain registrations. The suit claims Verisign's contract with ICANN guarantees it permanent control of the .com registry, letting it raise prices more than 30% since 2021 to $10.26 per domain despite falling industry costs, while ICANN shares in the resulting profits.
hbsslaw.com
· 2026-10-19
Apple has opened a claims website for customers eligible under its $250 million settlement over false advertising claims about AI features promised for the iPhone 15 and 16. The lawsuit, brought by Clarkson Law Firm, alleged Apple advertised Apple Intelligence capabilities that weren't actually available at launch; eligible buyers can expect payouts between $25 and $95 per device. The court gave preliminary approval in July, and a later order moved the final approval date up by seven months.
cnet.com
· 2026-10-18
Meta had updated its commercial terms of use to state it could use content from a business account's domains and URLs to develop, train and maintain its products. Legal experts cited by Nieman Lab warned this broad wording could let Meta scrape publisher websites for AI training, prompting the company to remove the provision after The Verge reported on the controversy.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-17
Samsung Galaxy phones running One UI 6.1.1 or later come with Auto Blocker enabled automatically, a feature that filters risky apps, USB commands and messages in the background. It blocks sideloaded apps and installs from outside the Google Play Store or Samsung Galaxy Store unless users manually adjust the setting. Epic Games previously sued Samsung, arguing the feature made installing third-party apps like its own store unnecessarily difficult.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-17
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