June 21, 2019

Advertising Law News and Analysis

1 min

Federal Court to FTC: Show the Receipts When Seeking Disgorgement

A new decision out of the Middle District of Florida may signal further erosion of the FTC's authority to seek monetary relief as it sets forth a heightened standard of proof the FTC must satisfy to support its disgorgement calculation. In FTC v. Vylah Tech LLC, the court found Vylah Tech, a small tech company, liable for disseminating false and misleading information regarding its computers. However, the court completely shut down the FTC's demand for disgorgement of $3,400,000 in Vylah Tech's purported revenues, awarding the FTC a whopping $0.

Locksmiths Locked Out of Lawsuit Against Search Engines

These days, Big Tech is Big News. While federal lawmakers have recently turned their attention to tech giants and their market power—and launched a broad antitrust probe to boot—a recent decision out of the D.C. Circuit may offer these companies some respite (for now). In a case that pitted fourteen locksmith companies against three tech giants, the appeals court ruled that the safe harbor protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA") applied to shield the tech giants from suit.