Technology Lawsuit Analysis: AI Copyright, Privacy, and Antitrust

Technology lawsuits in 2026 span four fronts at once: privacy class actions over website tracking tools, copyright fights over AI training data, federal antitrust cases against Meta and Google, and a sharpening FTC enforcement push on children’s data. Some fronts have produced the largest settlements in their fields of law. Others are still waiting on rulings that could reshape how products are built. Here is where each one stands.

Tracking Pixel Privacy Class Actions

Tracking pixels — small pieces of code that send user data to third parties like Meta and Google — are the single most actively litigated technology in the country. Plaintiffs argue the pixels function as illegal wiretaps under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, and various state laws. Each CIPA violation carries $5,000 in statutory damages, which is what drives settlement values into the tens and hundreds of millions.

Healthcare Settlements

Hospitals and telehealth providers have borne the brunt. Sutter Health agreed to pay $21.5 million to resolve claims that pixels on its MyHealthOnline portal shared patient data with Google and Meta without consent; a Sacramento County judge granted final approval in early 2026.¹ Inova Health Care Services settled similar claims for $3.1 million.² Lemonaid Health reached a $3.25 million deal in bankruptcy court.³ The Christ Hospital in Ohio agreed to pay between $4.5 million and $7 million for patients who used its portal or submitted health forms from December 2018 through January 2023.⁴

The biggest healthcare pixel case has not settled. In In re Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation, plaintiffs have identified at least 664 medical provider websites where Meta’s pixel allegedly collected patient data, including portal logins and appointment requests. A motion for class certification was filed in September 2025, and in April 2025 a magistrate judge ordered Mark Zuckerberg to sit for a deposition, finding he was the “final decisionmaker on all consequential privacy decisions.”⁵

The Flo Health Verdict Against Meta

The most consequential pixel ruling to date came in August 2025. A unanimous jury in the Northern District of California found Meta liable for violating CIPA Section 632 by using its software development kit to eavesdrop on users of the Flo Health menstrual-tracking app. Plaintiffs alleged that Flo shared menstrual cycle timing, birth control preferences, and sexual activity details with Meta for advertising.⁶ The jury rejected Meta’s arguments on intent and consent.⁷ With statutory damages of $5,000 per violation across millions of class members, Meta’s exposure has been estimated in the billions. Flo settled its own claims mid-trial. Meta is expected to pursue post-trial motions and, failing that, appeal to the Ninth Circuit.⁸

Video Privacy Protection Act Cases

The VPPA, a 1988 statute originally aimed at video rental records, has become the vehicle for suits against websites that host video content and share viewing data via pixels. Recent settlements:

AMC Networks: $8.3 million for users of AMC+, Shudder, and Acorn TV.⁹
Boston Globe: roughly $4–5 million.¹⁰
FloSports: $2.625 million.⁹
GoodRx: $25 million in a class action, plus a $1.5 million FTC fine.¹⁰

Who even counts as a “consumer” under the VPPA is now contested. The Second Circuit held in Salazar v. National Basketball Ass’n (2024) that subscribing to a newsletter on a site that also hosts video is enough. The Sixth Circuit went the other way in Salazar v. Paramount Global (2025), ruling that the subscription has to be for audiovisual materials specifically.¹¹ The split remains unresolved.

CIPA Reform Stalled

California Senate Bill 690 would have carved out a “commercial business purpose” exception to CIPA shielding routine analytics, chat, and session replay from wiretap liability. The bill passed the state Senate 35–0 but stalled in the Assembly in 2025 after opposition from privacy advocates and plaintiffs’ attorneys.¹² As of mid-2026 it has not advanced, and even if revived, it would apply only prospectively.¹³

Session Replay and AI Chatbot Wiretap Suits

Before pixels dominated privacy dockets, plaintiffs targeted session replay tools from vendors like FullStory, Hotjar, and Microsoft Clarity. These tools record mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and scrolling to create video-like reconstructions of user sessions.¹⁴ Courts have split on the central legal question: is the third-party vendor a separate eavesdropper, or just an extension of the website? In Saleh v. Nike, a California federal court found potential liability where the third party has real-time access without consent. In Graham v. Noom, another court held that a service provider acting as the website’s extension cannot “tap its own wire.”¹⁵

The same theory has moved onto website chatbots and AI call-center tools. Chatbot wiretap lawsuits grew from 2 in 2021 to 30 in 2025.¹⁶ In Ambriz v. Google LLC, plaintiffs allege that Google Cloud Contact Center AI eavesdrops on, transcribes, and summarizes customer calls without consent. A Northern District of California court denied Google’s motion to dismiss in February 2025, holding that the AI tool qualifies as a third-party wiretap because it has the “capability” to record and use data for the provider’s benefit, even if the provider never actually accessed it.¹⁷ Additional class actions targeting generative AI tools in call centers have followed.¹⁸

AI Copyright Lawsuits

Over 70 copyright infringement suits have been filed against AI developers alleging that copyrighted works were used to train large language models without permission.¹⁹

The OpenAI MDL and the New York Times Case

The consolidated action is In Re: OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation (1:25-md-03143) in the Southern District of New York before Judge Sidney H. Stein. The MDL was formed by a panel order in April 2025. Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster joined as plaintiffs in March 2026.²⁰ OpenAI has been ordered to produce “tens of millions” of ChatGPT logs. No trial date is set.²¹

In the related New York Times v. Microsoft and OpenAI (23-cv-11195), Judge Stein let direct and contributory infringement claims proceed while dismissing unfair competition claims with prejudice and several DMCA claims without prejudice. The court has not reached the fair use question.²²

Anthropic’s $1.5 Billion Settlement

The largest financial resolution in AI copyright law came in Bartz v. Anthropic. In June 2025, Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of legally purchased books to train Claude was “among the most transformative we will see in our lifetimes” and qualified as fair use. He rejected the defense for works downloaded from piracy sites LibGen and Pirate Library Mirror, calling such piracy “inherently, irredeemably infringing.”²³

Facing potential statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work across roughly 482,460 titles — a theoretical maximum of $72 billion — Anthropic settled for $1.5 billion, approximately $3,000 per covered work, and agreed to destroy the pirated libraries. The deal covers only past conduct through August 25, 2025, and does not license future training.²⁴ A fairness hearing for final approval was scheduled for April 2026.²⁵

Other AI Copyright Rulings

In Kadrey v. Meta, a court found training LLMs on books “highly transformative” and fair use in June 2025, but allowed the case to proceed on separate allegations that Meta illegally “seeded” copyrighted works. Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence, the first trial-court ruling that training AI on copyrighted legal content is not fair use, is awaiting oral arguments at the Third Circuit. Music labels and AI developers Udio and Suno have moved toward licensing agreements.¹⁹

Musk v. OpenAI, Dismissed

Elon Musk’s suit against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and president Greg Brockman ended in May 2026 without reaching the merits. Musk alleged that Altman and Brockman “stole a charity” by restructuring OpenAI from a nonprofit into a for-profit entity. He sought up to $150 billion in damages, removal of Altman and Brockman from leadership, and an unwinding of the restructuring. Microsoft was named a co-defendant over its $13 billion investment.²⁶

A nine-member advisory jury in Oakland, before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, unanimously found that Musk had waited too long to sue, concluding he was aware of the conduct as early as 2021. Judge Rogers adopted the finding and dismissed all claims. Musk’s lead attorney, Marc Toberoff, said he would appeal.²⁷

Big Tech Antitrust Cases

FTC v. Meta

The FTC’s monopolization case against Meta, built on the theory that Meta illegally maintained dominance in personal social networking by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp, ended at the district court in late 2025. Judge James E. Boasberg granted summary judgment to Meta, concluding that “Meta holds no monopoly in the relevant market.” The court found that TikTok and YouTube offer “nearly identical main features” and are “fierce competitors,” pushing Meta’s share below monopoly levels once they were included.²⁸ The FTC filed a notice of appeal in January 2026, and the case is pending before the D.C. Circuit.²⁹

DOJ v. Google

Google faces two separate federal antitrust cases. In the search monopoly case, a Washington judge found in 2025 that Google operated an illegal monopoly but declined to force the sale of Chrome, instead imposing limited restrictions on Google’s search and AI app contracts. The Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general have appealed, seeking stronger remedies.³⁰

In the ad tech case, DOJ prevailed in April 2025 after a 15-day trial in the Eastern District of Virginia. The court held that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets and had “harmed Google’s publishing customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”³¹

Biometric Privacy Suits Under BIPA

The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act requires companies to obtain informed written consent before collecting fingerprints, facial geometry, and similar data, and it lets individuals sue without proving actual harm. Between 2015 and September 2024, 909 federal BIPA cases were filed, with fingerprints (52%) and facial geometry (40%) the most common subjects. Workers suing employers over fingerprint timekeeping systems make up most plaintiffs.³²

Notable technology-sector settlements:

Facebook (2021): $650 million for using facial recognition in photo tagging; about 1.6 million Illinois residents received $345 or more each.³³
TikTok (2022): $92 million for collecting facial geometry without consent.
BNSF Railway (2024): $75 million, following a jury trial that initially produced a $228 million verdict.
Bumble/Badoo (2022): $40 million for unlawful collection of facial geometry.³²

An August 2024 amendment to BIPA says multiple collections from the same person count as a single violation, limiting damages. Federal courts in Illinois are divided on whether that amendment applies retroactively to pending cases.³²

FTC Enforcement and Children’s Privacy

Under Chair Andrew Ferguson, the FTC has made children’s online privacy a top enforcement priority in its 2026–2030 strategic plan. Updated COPPA rules took effect in 2025 with a full compliance deadline of April 22, 2026. The revised definition of personal information now includes biometric identifiers and government-issued IDs, and companies must obtain separate parental consent for each new third-party data-sharing arrangement.³⁴

Recent actions:

Disney (2025–2026): $10 million settlement over allegations the company enabled collection of children’s data through third-party SDKs in mobile games.³⁵
GM and OnStar (2026): finalized order over allegations GM collected and sold geolocation and driving data to brokers Verisk and LexisNexis without informed consent.³⁶
NGL Anonymous App (2026): $5 million fine for deceptive tactics and unauthorized data collection from minors.³⁷
Sendit App (2025): alleged COPPA violations for collecting children’s data without parental consent and fabricating anonymous messages to induce premium subscriptions.³⁶

The FTC also reached a $68 million settlement with Google in January 2026 over Voice Assistant recordings triggered without a wake word. Apple agreed to a $95 million Siri settlement in January 2025 and a $250 million deal in May 2026 over marketing claims about Siri’s AI capabilities.³⁷

What’s Coming Next

“AI-washing” securities class actions, in which plaintiffs allege companies exaggerated their AI capabilities to inflate stock prices, have outpaced other categories of securities litigation in 2026.³⁸ Discovery rules are catching up too: a federal court ruled in May 2026 that AI prompts used by an expert witness are discoverable, and a separate ruling found that putting privileged information into a commercially available AI tool can waive attorney-client privilege.³⁹

States are moving in different directions. Colorado replaced its original AI Act with a narrower notice-and-disclosure framework in May 2026. New York’s RAISE Act, effective March 2026, imposes transparency and safety requirements on developers of large frontier models. Texas enacted TRAIGA, banning harmful AI uses and requiring disclosures for government and healthcare AI, effective January 2026. At the federal level, the AI Foundation Model Transparency Act and the Trump America AI Act are pending; the latter would repeal Section 230.³⁹

Agentic AI — autonomous systems that execute code or enter contracts — poses questions existing frameworks were not built for. As of mid-2026, no court has issued a definitive ruling on how liability should be allocated when a fully autonomous agent causes harm.⁴⁰ That open question, together with the VPPA circuit split and the pending fair use decisions in the OpenAI MDL, is where the next round of technology lawsuits will be decided.

1
Class Action. $21.5M Sutter Health Settlement Ends Class Action Over Alleged Patient Info Sharing With Google, Facebook
2
CookieScript. Consumer Privacy Lawsuit Roundup 2026: From CIPA to COPPA
3
Lemonaid Pixel Settlement. Lemonaid Pixel Settlement
4
TCH Settlement. The Christ Hospital Pixel Litigation Settlement
5
Cohen Milstein. In Re Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation
6
IAPP. Dressing Old Laws in Class Action Suits: Tracking Technologies That Disclose Personal Information
7
Lawdragon. Big Tech on Trial: Jury Finds Meta Liable for Misusing Women’s Health Data
8
Labaton Khoury and Sucharow. Frasco v. Flo Health Inc.
9
ClassAction.org. VPPA Privacy Investigations
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CompliancePoint. Avoiding Meta Pixel Lawsuits
11
American Bar Association. Pixel Tools VPPA Class Action
12
Duane Morris. California SB 690 Stalls: CIPA Liability Remains at Least Through 2026
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Cyber Adviser Blog. CIPA Reform in 2026: What Website Operators Need to Know
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Berkeley Technology Law Journal. Session Replay Software and Wiretap Litigation
15
Buchanan Ingersoll. Session Replay Software and Chat Wiretapping Lawsuits
16
Baker Botts. AI Chatbot Regulation: 78 State Bills, 58 Lawsuits
17
Goodwin. AI Voice Products Subject to California Invasion of Privacy Claims
18
Holland and Knight. Up Next in Privacy Litigation: Class Actions Begin to Target AI Voice and Call Monitoring
19
Copyright Alliance. AI Copyright Lawsuit Developments 2025
20
Law360. In Re OpenAI Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation
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CourtListener. In Re OpenAI Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation
22
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. The New York Times Company v. Microsoft Corporation, Opinion and Order
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Ropes and Gray. Anthropic’s Landmark Copyright Settlement: Implications for AI Developers and Enterprise Users
24
Wolters Kluwer. The Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement: Understanding America’s Largest Copyright Settlement
25
Lieff Cabraser. Authors Secure $1.5 Billion Settlement in Landmark AI Piracy Case
26
NPR. Musk, Altman, OpenAI Jury Verdict Claims Dismissed
27
CNN. OpenAI Musk Lawsuit Verdict
28
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. FTC v. Meta Platforms Inc., Memorandum of Opinion
29
Federal Trade Commission. FTC Appeals Ruling in Meta Monopolization Case
30
Bloomberg Law. Google Search Remedy to Be Appealed by State Attorneys General
31
U.S. Department of Justice. Department of Justice Prevails in Landmark Antitrust Case Against Google
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American Bar Association. Biometric Privacy Litigation
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U.S. Congress. Privacy Legislation: Data, Technology, and Industry Perspectives
34
Bloomberg Law. Companies Face New Enforcement Risks Under Kids Privacy Update
35
Federal Trade Commission. Privacy and Security Enforcement
36
Future of Privacy Forum. U.S. Privacy Enforcement in 2025
37
CookieScript. Consumer Privacy Lawsuit Roundup 2026
38
Skadden. AI-Related Claims and Other Securities Litigation Trends to Watch
39
Alston and Bird. AI Quarterly: April 2026
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Baker Donelson. 2026 AI Legal Forecast: From Innovation to Compliance