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Welcome to The Fineprint, where we sweat the small stuff that makes a big difference.

True or false… In Georgia, it is illegal to have chickens crossing the road.
_{You can find the answer at the end!}

Now let’s take a look at the most interesting legal developments that took place over the past 7 days, including:

• An A.I. privacy violation catches up with Facebook after more than a decade.

• TikTok gets sued by the U.S., reinforcing the importance of having policies to protect younger users and customers.

• The maker of popular Stanley cups insists it’s legal to use toxic lead inside of their products.

But first…

How do professionals with busy schedules from Google, Apple, and OpenAI stay up to date on the latest tech developments? It’s easy. They read Techpresso! ☕️

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PRIVACY

Facebook’s Billion-Dollar Fine Is A Warning To Any Company Using A.I.

Why we’re paying attention - As companies race to incorporate artificial intelligence into their products and workflows, they risk losing sight of privacy laws in their pursuit of AI’s immense benefits. Many jurisdictions around the world have laws about what data you can feed into models and under what circumstances. While the potential rewards from AI are huge, neglecting privacy is a risky gamble with serious long-term consequences. Which Facebook just learned the expensive way…

Way back in 2010, Facebook released its notorious “face tagging” feature.

When a photo of you was uploaded to the platform, Facebook would use facial recognition to identify you and suggest your name for tagging in the photo.

But one year earlier in 2009, Texas passed its Capture Or Use Of Biometric Identifier (CUBI) Act, which banned companies from capturing the biometric data of Texans (including faces) without their consent.

Despite Facebook eventually making the feature opt-in in 2019 and phasing it out entirely by 2021, Texas argued that face tagging illegally collected the facial data of 20.5 million Texans during its lifetime.

Hankerin’ for justice, Texas finally moseyed on over to the courtroom to file a lawsuit against Meta in 2022, which was finally settled last Tuesday (30th July 2024).

The verdict?

Facebook seems as guilty as a fox in a henhouse, settling for $1.4 billion—the largest in Texan history.

Really puts our $100 parking fine in perspective.

SOCIAL MEDIA

TikTok Still Failing Children On Privacy, According to DOJ

Another major update.

TikTok’s legal headaches intensified on 2nd August after the United States sued the company. 

Again.

This fresh lawsuit comes courtesy of the Department Of Justice (DOJ) after they took major offense to how TikTok handles the accounts of minors under the age of 13.

As per the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), it is illegal to use or collect personal info from children under 13 unless parents give their consent.

TikTok was hit with a $5.7 million penalty in 2019 after millions of breaches of COPPA were found.

The company was ordered to:

• Destroy personal info of children under 13;

• Delete the accounts of anyone with an unknown age; and

• Maintain records to show they’re complying with child privacy laws.

The lawsuit filed on last Friday argues that TikTok failed to delete the accounts that have been identified as belonging to children, and aired many more grievances:

• TikTok allowed children onto the platform via its “Kids Mode” where it still collected data without consent and ignored requests from parents to delete accounts

• TikTok categorized a user’s age as “unknown” when they signed up via Google or Instagram which opened a loophole for millions of kids to create an account without consent

• The human reviewers employed by TikTok to verify accounts would sometimes spend as little as 5-7 seconds investigating an account —an inadequate level of protection

The lawsuit could result in TikTok being hit with a billion-dollar fine and adds to the legal pressure it faces over its looming sell-or-get-banned lawsuit.

This story is a reminder that businesses who collect data from customers in countries with child privacy laws must have appropriate policies and procedures in place to handle the privacy rights of minors.

SNIPPETS

Neil Zlozower, the legendary rock photographer, is taking Warner Records to court for using one of his photos of Tom Petty. Zlozower alleges Warner infringed on his copyright by sharing the 1970s-era image on the official Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Facebook page without his permission. This lawsuit marks Zlozower's 57th copyright infringement case since 2016, proving he's no stranger to shaking down those who dare to misuse his iconic shots. Some say it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, but this is a risky strategy in the realms of copyright law – especially if you step outside the bounds of fair use.

DuckDuckGo has been officially banned in Indonesia because the government suspected that it was being used to access online gambling websites which are illegal in the country. The Indonesian government is determined to crack down on any technology that allows its citizens to bypass their restrictions because, according to government data, 1.5% of the nation’s entire GDP is spent on gambling and the industry disproportionately hurts lower income families—including one police officer who was set on fire by his wife after she discovered his gambling addiction. It was a heated argument to say the least.

The maker of the popular Stanley Cups, Pacific Market International (PMI), admitted back in January 2024 that their products contain the toxic chemical lead. This revelation sparked outcry among consumers along with a class action lawsuit that was filed on behalf of all Californian customers over PMI’s failure to provide sufficient warnings about the presence of the toxic chemical. Stanley submitted their defense on Thursday pointing out that no one has reported actually being harmed by the lead in Stanley cups because the chemical is sealed away behind stainless steel in the bottom of the cup. Personally, we here at the Fineprint would appreciate a heads up if a product we’re purchasing contains lead, but PMI insist that they’ve done nothing to lead consumers astray.

In 2022, the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of misdirecting their political emails to users' spam folders. The RNC sought restitution for millions of dollars in "donations it allegedly lost as a result." However, in August 2023, the court dismissed the claim, stating that the RNC failed to demonstrate that Google acted in bad faith when filtering their messages into Gmail users' spam folders. Two months later, the RNC amended their claim and refiled the suit. On 31st July 2024, the court reached the same verdict, dismissing the case once again. If at first you don’t succeed, sue and sue again?

We’ve been seeing the dramatic aftermath of the Crowdstrike security software outage unfold this week. While the outage affected millions of people and devices, some were hit harder than others. Delta Airlines, for instance, had to ground flights, lost $500million in revenue, and are being sued en masse by their customers. In response, Delta has hired David Boies, a formidable litigation lawyer, in preparation to take legal action against Crowdstrike.

Meanwhile, while Crowdstrike was bracing for impact from external legal attacks, they were hit by a lawsuit from within. Specifically, one of their own shareholders, the Plymouth County Retirement Association, decided to lawyer up after the value of their shares fell by over 30% following the outage. Lawyers for the retirement fund filed a class action suit on behalf of anyone who bought stock between November 29, 2023 and July 29, 2024. Their case points out that Crowdstrike has promised to avoid any future crashes by gradually rolling out their new updates to users in phases. This implies they weren’t doing that already which means that Crowdstrike’s claims that their technology was "validated, tested, and certified" were misleading.

MEME

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The answer to today’s “did you know” is…

True. The next time someone asks, "Why did the chicken cross the road?", Georgia wouldn't know, as they have made it illegal for chicken owners to allow their chicken to cross the road!

Remember: always read the Fineprint!