Latest news with #CaliforniaComprehensiveComputerDataAccessandFraudAct
Epoch Times
07-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
Jury Awards Meta $168 Million in WhatsApp Spyware Case
A California jury awarded Meta nearly $168 million in compensation on May 6 in a privacy case against Israeli spyware company NSO Group. In October 2019, WhatsApp and Facebook, both of which operate under Meta, filed a In December 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California On May 6, a jury The jury agreed that WhatsApp has proven by 'clear and convincing evidence that NSO engaged in malice, oppression, or fraud in violating the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.' The WhatsApp complaint was focused on NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, which was developed 'to be remotely installed and enable the remote access and control of information—including calls, messages, and location—on mobile devices using the Android, iOS, and BlackBerry operating systems,' the lawsuit said. Related Stories 4/30/2025 5/2/2025 'Pegasus was designed, in part, to intercept communications sent to and from a device, including communications over iMessage, Skype, Telegram, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and others,' it said. WhatsApp alleged that NSO implanted Pegasus on WhatsApp users' phones and relayed data from compromised phones to NSO as well as NSO's customers. In an April 2020 court NSO said WhatsApp conflated NSO's actions with those of NSO's customers, such as sovereign governments. The group's business model 'consists of selling NSO's Pegasus technology to governments and providing basic technical support for them,' the filing said. 'If anyone installed Pegasus on any alleged 'Target Devices,' it was not Defendants [NSO]. It would have been an agency of a sovereign government,' it said. NSO said it never targeted anyone and contractually prohibits customers from using Pegasus to target individuals who are not suspected criminals or terrorists. 'If a government ever misused NSO's Pegasus technology to monitor WhatsApp users other than criminals or terrorists, Defendants have no knowledge of that misuse, which would be a violation of that government's contract with NSO,' the Israeli company said. Protecting Privacy Meta welcomed the court decision, saying in a May 6 'Today's verdict in WhatsApp's case is an important step forward for privacy and security as the first victory against the development and use of illegal spyware that threatens the safety and privacy of everyone,' the company said. The jury's decision to impose fines against NSO is a 'critical deterrent to this malicious industry against their illegal acts aimed at American companies and the privacy and security of the people we serve,' it said. Responding to the court decision, Gil Lainer, VP for global communications at NSO Group, told The Epoch Times that the company's technology has played 'a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism' and has been used in security operations that have saved American lives. This perspective 'was excluded from the jury's consideration in this case,' said Lainer. 'We will carefully examine the verdict's details and pursue appropriate legal remedies, including further proceedings and an appeal,' he said. 'NSO remains fully committed to its mission to develop technologies that protect public safety, while continuously strengthening our industry-leading compliance framework and ensuring our technology is deployed solely for their legitimate, authorized purposes by legitimate sovereign governments.' Digital rights advocacy group Access Now supported the court decision in a May 6 In December 2020, Access Now and its partners submitted an amicus brief in the case, detailing victims of NSO's alleged hacking of WhatsApp. 'This verdict sends a clear message to spyware companies that targeting people through U.S.-based platforms will come with a high price,' said Michael De Dora, U.S. policy and advocacy manager at the organization. 'It underscores the importance of U.S. institutions protecting the digital infrastructure and individuals that rely on it from unlawful surveillance.' In November 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce 'These entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers,' the department said.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Judge allows authors' AI copyright lawsuit against Meta to move forward
A federal judge is allowing an AI-related copyright lawsuit against Meta to move forward, although he dismissed part of the suit. In Kadrey vs. Meta, authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Ta-Nehisi Coates have alleged that Meta has violated their intellectual property rights by using their books to train its Llama AI models, and that the company removed the copyright information from their books to hide the alleged infringement. Meta, meanwhile, has claimed that its training qualifies as fair use, and it argued the case should be dismissed because the authors lack standing to sue. In court last month, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria seemed to indicate he was against dismissal, but he also criticizing what he saw as 'over-the-top' rhetoric from the authors' legal teams. In Friday's ruling, Chhabria wrote that the allegation of copyright infringement is 'obviously a concrete injury sufficient for standing' and that the authors have also 'adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed CMI [copyright management information] to conceal copyright infringement.' 'Taken together, these allegations raise a 'reasonable, if not particularly strong inference' that Meta removed CMI to try to prevent Llama from outputting CMI and thus revealing it was trained on copyrighted material,' Chhabria wrote. The judge did, however, dismiss the authors' claims related to the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA), because they did not 'allege that Meta accessed their computers or servers — only their data (in the form of their books).' The lawsuit has already provided a few glimpses into how Meta approaches copyright, with court filings from the plaintiffs claiming that Mark Zuckerberg gave the Llama team permission to train the models using copyrighted works and that other Meta team members discussed the use of legally questionable content for AI training. The courts are weighing a number of AI copyright lawsuits at the moment, including The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI. Sign in to access your portfolio
