Has Section 230 Created a ‘Vast Web of Vengeance’?

Slashdot reader GatorSnake shares “Another take of the implications of Section 230… One person poisoned the online personas of multiple people who had ‘wronged’ her, with it being nearly impossible to have the false accusations removed from the sites or from Google’s search results.” The New York Times reports:
Mr. Babcock, a software engineer, got off the phone and Googled himself. The…

Google Halts Its Curated News Plan in Australia, Calling Government’s Rules ‘Unworkable’

Google “has decided to freeze plans to launch its curated News Showcase in Australia over claims the draft News Media Bargaining Code is ‘unworkable’,” reports Engadget:
Google still objected to what it called a “must include, must pay” approach in the code where it not only has to pay news outlets it links to, but is obligated to carry those outlets for…

A Literal Child and His Mom Sue Nintendo Over ‘Joy-Con Drift’

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A boy and his mother today filed a class action lawsuit against Nintendo for not doing enough to fix a hardware problem common among Nintendo Switch controllers. It is one of several legal efforts related to the issue of “Joy-Con drift” — a phenomenon where the Switch Joy-Con controllers make in-game characters “drift”…

Facebook Threatens To Cut Off Australians From Sharing News

Facebook plans to block people and publishers in Australia from sharing news, a move that pushes back against a proposed law forcing the company to pay media firms for their articles. From a report: The threat escalates an antitrust battle between Facebook and the Australian government, which wants the social-media giant and Alphabet’s Google to compensate publishers for the value they…

Are Uber Drivers Employees? Uber Faces Two Big Court Challenges

Strider- (Slashdot reader #39,683) shares a story from Reuters:
Canada’s Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a driver in a gig economy case that paves the way for a class action suit calling for Uber Technologies Inc to recognize drivers in Canada as company employees. UberEats driver David Heller had filed a class action suit, challenged by Uber, aiming to…

How a Corporation Suddenly Faced ‘Flood’ of Lawsuits From Thousands of Gig Workers

Long-time Slashdot reader PalmAndy shared the New York Times profile of two pioneers in “mass arbitration.” One Silicon Valley founder created FairShake, an automated system to help consumers launch hundreds of arbitration cases against corporations like Comcast and AT&T. And then there’s attorney Travis Lenkner (and his firm Keller Lenkner), who says most companies never thought consumers would actually use arbitration….

Signing Up With Amazon, Wal-Mart, Or Uber Forfeits Your Right To Sue Them

Long-time Slashdot reader DogDude shared this article from CNN:
Tucked into the sign-up process for many popular e-commerce sites and apps are dense terms-of-service agreements that legal experts say are changing the nature of consumer transactions, creating a veil of secrecy around how these companies function. The small print in these documents requires all signatories to agree to binding arbitration and to…

Chase Bank Is Quietly Adding a Forced Arbitration Clause To Some Credit Cards

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fast Company: JPMorgan Chase is quietly re-introducing a heavy-handed legal maneuver. Today, its Slate credit card customers received an email that the bank was updating its account terms. In the message was a lot of legalese about certain tweaks, and it included one big addition: forced arbitration. According to Chase, the new agreement includes…