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Meta’s Bay State Blues: Mass. High Court Finds Another Crack in the Section 230 Shield
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April 20, 2026
Meta’s Bay State Blues: Mass. High Court Finds Another Crack in the Section 230 Shield
By: Robert Ward
Meta’s Bay State Blues: Mass. High Court Finds Another Crack in the Section 230 Shield Mere weeks after juries in California and New Mexico returned multi-million-dollar verdicts against Meta Platforms, Inc., the social media company suffered another defeat. On April 10, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) rejected the social media company’s attempt to raise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a shield against the Massachusetts Attorney General’s lawsuit alleging that the company, along with Instagram LLC, designed the Instagram platform to foster compulsive use among children. Like the plaintiff in the California case, the Attorney General alleges that Meta implemented a “suite of design features that exploit [young] users’ neurological vulnerability to social media addiction,” including “infinite…
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Thinking about adding an AI Chatbot? Some key considerations.
February 17, 2026
Thinking about adding an AI Chatbot? Some key considerations.
By: Steven Hess
Many companies are thinking about how to deploy new AI systems to automate routine work and to improve their product. For many businesses, adding an AI chatbot is a valuable way to enhance the customer experience by automating routine conversations,[1] and by alerting customers to new deals and offerings that are relevant to them.[2] Coupled with the rising ubiquity of AI chatbots in modern life,[3]…
Is Scrolling the New Smoking?
January 21, 2026
Is Scrolling the New Smoking?
By: Lauren Scribner
In the final weeks of 2025, New York passed a law requiring social media platforms with “certain predatory features” to display warning labels about “the dangerous impact” those features pose to the mental health of users under the age of eighteen.[1] These so-called “predatory features” include continuous and infinite scrolling, displaying addictive feeds, and automatically playing video content.[2] Warning labels will be displayed upon the…
FDA Says Product Containing No Tobacco is a “Tobacco Product” – FDA Expands Authority to Include E-Puffing
April 24, 2014
FDA Says Product Containing No Tobacco is a “Tobacco Product” – FDA Expands Authority to Include E-Puffing
By: Michelle Cohen
In an effort that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials say was motivated by the (Big Brother?) desire “to correct a misperception by consumers that tobacco products not regulated by FDA are safe alternatives to currently regulated tobacco products,” the FDA released proposed regulations this morning that would regulate the rapidly growing e-cigarette market. (The regulations would also regulate cigars, pipe tobacco, nicotine gels, and…
Don’t be a Jerk
April 17, 2014
Don’t be a Jerk
By: Ifrah Law
Last week the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) charged the operators of Jerk.com with harvesting personal information from Facebook to create profiles for more than an estimated 73 million people, where they could be labeled a “Jerk” or “not a Jerk.” In the complaint, the FTC charged the defendants, Jerk, LLC and the operator of the website, John Fanning, with violating the FTC Act by allegedly…
“Heartbleed” Bug – Antibiotics Won’t Help, Changing Passwords Might
April 14, 2014
“Heartbleed” Bug – Antibiotics Won’t Help, Changing Passwords Might
By: Michelle Cohen
After recovering from high-profile data breaches at Target and Neiman Marcus, signing up for free credit monitoring and analyzing our credit reports, a new Internet villain recently emerged: the “Heartbleed Bug.” The Heartbleed Bug is a security flaw present on Open SSL, popular software run on most webservers. This open source software is widely used to encrypt web communications. The Heartbleed Bug affects approximately 500,000…
TCPA Litigation Explosion Leads to Rule Clarifications
April 10, 2014
TCPA Litigation Explosion Leads to Rule Clarifications
By: Michelle Cohen
Congress enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) to protect consumers from unwanted telemarketing, fax marketing, and prerecorded/auto-dialed phone calls. Recently, there has been an explosion in TCPA litigation, including class action litigation. In response, several parties have asked the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) to clarify certain of the agency’s TCPA rules to provide relief from TCPA liability in certain enumerated circumstances. Two recent FCC…
FTC Sends Message: Make Your Mobile App Secure
April 7, 2014
FTC Sends Message: Make Your Mobile App Secure
By: Ifrah Law
Mobile payments have become so commonplace that consumers rarely stop to think about whether their online payment is secure. Mobile app developers can fall into a similar trap of assuming that the necessary security measures are enabled without performing the necessary audits to assure security on a regular basis. A recent settlement between the FTC and two companies offering unsecured mobile application products gives cause…
