Latest news with #JoseCastaneda
Reuters
22-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Google persuades US appeals court to overturn $20 mln Nest patent verdict
May 22 (Reuters) - Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab on Wednesday convinced a U.S. appeals court to overturn its $20 million trial loss to energy-management company EcoFactor in a patent lawsuit over Google's Nest smart thermostats. Following a rare full-court review, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said, opens new tab that Google was entitled to a new trial to determine how much it owed EcoFactor in damages. A three-judge Federal Circuit panel had upheld the award in a split decision last year. Spokespeople for EcoFactor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said the company was pleased with the decision and looked forward to presenting its case in district court. EcoFactor, based in Palo Alto, California, sells smart home energy-efficiency services. It sued Google for patent infringement in Waco, Texas, federal court in 2020, arguing that Nest thermostats use EcoFactor's patented method for automatically reducing energy usage during peak demand. A jury determined in 2022 that Google infringed one of the patents and awarded EcoFactor just over $20 million in damages. The Federal Circuit upheld the verdict in a 2-1 ruling last June, rejecting Google's argument that the proposed damages rate from EcoFactor's expert was "plucked out of nowhere." The full Federal Circuit overturned the panel's damages ruling on Wednesday. It said the Texas court "gave no rationale for ruling that the expert testimony was admissible" and that the expert's opinion was "not based upon sufficient facts or data." Google's argument drew support in court briefs from other tech giants including Apple, Tesla and Intel. The case is EcoFactor Inc v. Google LLC, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, No. 23-1101. For EcoFactor: Reza Mirzaie of Russ August & Kabat For Google: Robert Van Nest of Keker Van Nest & Peters Read more: Google hit with $20 million verdict in Nest thermostat patent trial Google loses bid to overturn $20 million Nest patent verdict Google convinces US appeals court to reconsider Nest patent verdict
Economic Times
22-05-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
Google, AI firm must face lawsuit filed by a mother over suicide of son, US court says
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said the company strongly disagrees with the decision. Castaneda also said that Google and are "entirely separate" and that Google "did not create, design, or manage app or any component part of it." was founded by two former Google engineers whom Google later rehired as part of a deal granting it a license to the startup's technology. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Alphabet's Google and artificial-intelligence startup must face a lawsuit from a Florida woman who said chatbots caused her 14-year-old son's suicide, a judge ruled on Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Anne Conway said the companies failed to show at an early stage of the case that the free-speech protections of the U.S. Constitution barred Megan Garcia's lawsuit is one of the first in the U.S. against an AI company for allegedly failing to protect children from psychological harms. It alleges that the teenager killed himself after becoming obsessed with an AI-powered chatbot.A spokesperson said the company will continue to fight the case and employs safety features on its platform to protect minors, including measures to prevent "conversations about self-harm."Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said the company strongly disagrees with the decision. Castaneda also said that Google and are "entirely separate" and that Google "did not create, design, or manage app or any component part of it."Garcia's attorney, Meetali Jain, said the "historic" decision "sets a new precedent for legal accountability across the AI and tech ecosystem." was founded by two former Google engineers whom Google later rehired as part of a deal granting it a license to the startup's technology. Garcia argued that Google was a co-creator of the technology. Garcia sued both companies in October after the death of her son, Sewell Setzer, in February lawsuit said programmed its chatbots to represent themselves as "a real person, a licensed psychotherapist, and an adult lover, ultimately resulting in Sewell's desire to no longer live outside" of its to the complaint, Setzer took his life moments after telling a chatbot imitating "Game of Thrones" character Daenerys Targaryen that he would "come home right now." and Google asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit on multiple grounds, including that the chatbots' output was constitutionally protected free said on Wednesday that and Google "fail to articulate why words strung together by an LLM (large language model) are speech."The judge also rejected Google's request to find that it could not be liable for aiding alleged misconduct.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Public comment periods at North Dakota local government meetings become mandatory Aug. 1
Members of the Burleigh County Planning Commission hear public comments during a meeting on Aug. 29, 2024. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor) Every meeting of a public board in North Dakota will be required to hold a public comment period during each of its meetings beginning Aug. 1. Senate Bill 2180, signed by Gov. Kelly Armstrong on April 30, requires local subdivisions, school districts, park districts and water resource boards to give meeting attendees the opportunity to make public comments to the board during their meetings. The bill states public boards may only limit the comment period based on total time of the comments, the time of each individual speaker to deliver their comments, or both. It would also limit the public comment topics to the current meeting's agenda items or the preceding meeting's agenda. Sen. Jose Castaneda, R-Minot, chair of the bill's conference committee, said the law sets the minimum standard and boards can choose to be less restrictive on public comments. North Dakota lawmakers approve needs, some wants with $20.3 billion budget Castaneda told lawmakers that if someone misses a meeting, they should be able to go to the next meeting and have their concerns be heard by that board. The bill stems from concerns that public entities were not providing adequate public comment periods during meetings and were limiting comments to only items on the board's current meeting agenda. Karen Krenz of Williston, who submitted testimony for the bill, said her local school board was limiting comments that could be made at meetings. 'As taxpayers, we should have the opportunity to contribute our input during public meetings,' Krenz wrote. 'When public input is limited, decisions may not fully reflect the needs and priorities of the community, leading to policies that are out of touch with public sentiment.' The law requires boards to craft public comment policies. The policies may require that comments need to be pertinent to the entity receiving the public comments and may 'not interfere with the orderly conduct' of the meeting. Comments may not be 'defamatory, abusive, harassing or unlawful,' and may not include confidential information. Photos: North Dakota Legislature works marathon final day Castaneda said the goal of the legislation was to find a good balance between giving time for people to address these public entities and not letting the comments hijack the meeting. Sen. Chuck Walen, R-New Town, a previous school board member, said limiting the comments to the current and preceding meeting was a good balance, otherwise, 'you can get into the weeds really, really fast.' 'I see this as a good compromise to have in here,' Walen said. Previous versions of the bill would have limited comments to only the current agenda items of the public board meeting and would have required a public comment period be offered at only some of the meetings, or once every three months. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Miami Herald
24-04-2025
- Miami Herald
Health insurance giant confirms largest patient data breach of 2025, impacting millions
Need an answer? Google it. Then do it again. Consequences? For sure. And it's not just that our constant reliance on tech might be making our brains lazier. There are other serious issues to consider. Whatever we type into that search bar - whether it's for personal curiosity, helping a friend, or conducting business - it's stored somewhere. And it's not always clear how it's used, or by whom. Turns out, even browsing in Chrome's "Incognito"mode doesn't guarantee privacy. In 2020, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Google (GOOGL) , accusing the tech giant of secretly collecting data through tools like Google Analytics and Ad Manager. In April 2024, Google agreed to delete billions of records as part of a settlement and agreed to allow incognito users to block third-party cookies for the next five years, and delete older data, writes Times. "We never associate data with users when they use incognito mode," Jose Castaneda, Google spokesperson, stated. "We are happy to delete old technical data that was never associated with an individual and was never used for any form of personalization." While companies are increasingly using personal information to create a more personalized experience, some users are aware that this technological advancement comes with a loss of privacy. Not to mention social media platforms, where people willingly share all kinds of personal information with a lot of people. Related: Meta Whistleblower reveals disturbing secrets in testimony Remember how Facebook (META) founder Mark Zuckeberg called his first few thousand users "dumb f*cks" for trusting him with their personal data, according to leaked messages reported by Business Insider? And that was just the beginning of Facebook, more than 20 years ago. Do you think things could have improved from there? A 2018 SAS survey revealed that 73% of people were already more concerned about data privacy than just a few years prior. A 2023 Pew Research Center report found that 71% of Americans worry about how the government uses their data - up from 64% in 2019. Roughly 77% of Americans lack confidence in social media executives to openly acknowledge errors and be accountable when it comes to the mishandling of user data. So what about health care data breaches? Health care data breaches have been increasingly common over the last 14 years, with 2023 seeing more such slipups than any other year since 2009, according to HIPAA Journal, which relied on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) data. The newest health care data breach was confirmed on April 9 by health insurance conglomerate Blue Shield of California. The Oakland-headquartered company and its affiliates provide health, dental, vision, Medicaid, and Medicare health care service plans across the Golden State. On April 9, Blue Shield of California issued a notice alerting certain members of a potential data breach involving protected health information (PHI) due to misconfigured use of Google Analytics between April 2021 and January 2024. The company did not confirm any specific member's data breach, but rather it is notifying all potentially affected users out of caution. The misconfiguration allowed for certain PHI to be shared with Google Ads, which may have been used for targeted advertising. "Google may have used this data to conduct focused ad campaigns back to those individual members. We want to reassure our members that no bad actor was involved, and, to our knowledge, Google has not used the information for any purpose other than these ads or shared the protected information with anyone," the notice reads. The potentially exposed data includes patient name, city, zip code, gender, family size, medical services information, and "Find a Doctor" search criteria and results. Fortunately, there was no disclosure of other types of sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, or banking or credit card information. With 4.7 million patients potentially affected, this is the largest health care-related data breach of 2025 so far, writes TechCrunch, citing the U.S. Health Department. Blue Shield has advised members to monitor account statements and credit reports for any suspicious activity as a precaution. Related: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook, Instagram block new Apple product The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Express Tribune
28-03-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Google settles $100m lawsuit for overcharging advertisers
Listen to article Google has agreed to pay $100 million in cash to settle a long-running lawsuit claiming it overcharged advertisers by failing to provide promised discounts and charged for clicks on ads outside the geographic areas the advertisers targeted. A preliminary settlement of the 14-year-old class action, which began in March 2011, was filed late Thursday in the San Jose, California, federal court, and requires a judge's approval. Advertisers who participated in Google's AdWords program, now known as Google Ads, accused the search engine operator of breaching its contract by manipulating its Smart Pricing formula to artificially reduce discounts. The advertisers also said Google, a unit of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet, misled them by failing to limit ad distribution to locations they designated, violating California's unfair competition law. Thursday's settlement covers advertisers who used AdWords between January 1, 2004, and December 13, 2012. Google denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. 'This case was about ad product features we changed over a decade ago and we're pleased it's resolved,' spokesman Jose Castaneda said in an emailed statement. Lawyers for the plaintiffs may seek fees of up to 33% of the settlement fund, plus $4.2 million for expenses. According to court papers, the case took a long time as the parties produced extensive evidence, including more than 910,000 pages of documents and multiple terabytes of click data from Google, and participated in six mediation sessions before four different mediators. The case is Cabrera et al v Google LLC, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 11-01263.
