Technology Lawsuit Update: Antitrust, AI Copyright, and Privacy

The latest technology lawsuit update heading into mid-2026 is dominated by antitrust losses for Google, an ongoing contempt fight between Apple and Epic Games, a looming October trial for Amazon, a $1.5 billion AI copyright settlement from Anthropic, and the first jury verdicts holding social media companies liable for harming children. Federal agencies, state attorneys general, and private plaintiffs are pressing claims across antitrust, copyright, privacy, and platform-safety law, and several of these cases are now moving from liability findings into remedies, appeals, or damages trials.

Google Has Lost Two Antitrust Cases

Google is on the losing end of liability rulings in two separate federal antitrust cases, and both are now in later stages.

Search Monopoly

In August 2024, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta issued a 277-page opinion finding that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly” in violation of the Sherman Act. The DOJ had sued in 2020, alleging Google paid billions to companies like Apple and Mozilla to lock in default search placement on smartphones and browsers.¹

After a 15-day remedies trial in May 2025, Judge Mehta ordered sweeping changes in September 2025. Google is now prohibited from entering or maintaining exclusive distribution contracts for Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and its Gemini app. It must also make search index data and user-interaction data available to competitors and offer search syndication services to rival companies. The remedies extend explicitly to generative AI technologies.¹

Google appealed to the D.C. Circuit in January 2026, filing a 111-page brief in May 2026 urging the court to overturn the monopoly finding and the data-sharing remedies. The company argues the ruling punishes it for “hard work, bold innovation and shrewd business decisions.”² No stay of the remedies has been reported.

Advertising Technology Monopoly

In a separate case in the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled on April 17, 2025 that Google illegally monopolized two markets: publisher ad servers (through DoubleClick for Publishers) and ad exchanges (through AdX). The court found Google unlawfully tied these products together. It rejected the DOJ’s claim regarding the advertiser ad network market, finding the government had not properly defined it.³⁴

Remedies testimony was scheduled for late September 2025, with a final ruling anticipated in 2026. The DOJ wants Google to open-source its auction logic and has asked the court to revisit the case in two years to consider a complete spinoff of the ad exchange. Rival ad exchanges Magnite, OpenX, and PubMatic have filed their own lawsuits seeking damages based on the court’s findings.⁴

Apple’s Antitrust Fights

DOJ Smartphone Monopoly Case

The DOJ and 16 states sued Apple in March 2024, alleging it unlawfully dominates the U.S. smartphone market through restrictions on third-party app developers, smartwatches, digital wallets, and messaging services. On June 30, 2025, U.S. District Judge Julien Neals in Newark denied Apple’s motion to dismiss.⁵ The case is in discovery, with Apple fighting to compel documents from 14 federal agencies that it says would show the government itself values the iPhone’s security and privacy features.⁶

Epic Games Contempt

Apple’s long-running fight with Epic Games over App Store rules escalated after Apple imposed a 12% to 27% commission on purchases made through external links, which Epic said violated the original injunction. The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court finding that Apple was in civil contempt for violating the “spirit” of that injunction, upheld a universal injunction applying to all registered developers worldwide who distribute apps on the U.S. App Store, and remanded to determine the specific commission rate Apple may charge.⁷ On May 6, 2026, Justice Elena Kagan denied Apple’s emergency application to stay the contempt order.⁸

Google took a different path. It settled with Epic in March 2026, lowering Play Store commissions from 15–30% to 10–20% and offering an optional 5% payment processing fee, with the new structure rolling out globally.⁹

FTC v. Amazon Heads to Trial in October 2026

The FTC, 18 state attorneys general, and Puerto Rico are pursuing Amazon for allegedly maintaining a monopoly over online marketplace services through practices that inflate seller costs and punish brands that offer lower prices on competing platforms. U.S. District Judge John Chun has twice refused to throw out the case, denying Amazon’s motion to dismiss in September 2024 and its motion for judgment on the pleadings in April 2025. Trial is set to begin October 13, 2026, with liability and remedies in separate proceedings.¹⁰¹¹

The FTC Lost Its Microsoft-Activision Challenge

On May 7, 2025, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction against Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The court found the FTC failed to demonstrate a “reasonable probability” that the merger would substantially lessen competition under the Clayton Act, noting that Activision’s PlayStation revenue roughly doubled its Xbox revenue and that Microsoft had kept Minecraft on multiple platforms after acquiring it. The deal closed on October 13, 2023, though an administrative proceeding remains pending before the FTC.¹²

AI Copyright Cases Are Reshaping the Industry

More than 40 court disputes are active nationwide over whether training AI models on copyrighted material constitutes infringement or fair use.¹³

Anthropic’s $1.5 Billion Settlement

In Bartz v. Anthropic, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion plus interest to settle claims that it trained its Claude language models on roughly 500,000 books pirated from Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. Judge William Alsup granted preliminary approval on September 25, 2025. About 93% of class members, covering roughly 448,000 works, submitted claims, with each eligible work expected to yield approximately $3,000 to $3,100. Anthropic must also destroy all original files from the pirate datasets and certify they were not used in commercially released models.¹⁴ The settlement releases only past claims; it does not grant Anthropic a license for future AI training.¹⁵

OpenAI Copyright MDL

Twelve separate copyright cases against OpenAI have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (In Re: OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation, 1:25-md-03143) in the Southern District of New York before Judge Sidney Stein. The litigation involves news publishers, including the New York Times, and class action plaintiffs.¹⁶

In December 2025, Judge Stein allowed claims for contributory copyright infringement, removal of copyright management information, and distribution of works with CMI removed to proceed. He dismissed the unjust enrichment claim as preempted and the technological-circumvention claim for failure to state a claim. He also stayed proceedings as to newer OpenAI models (o1, o3, GPT-4.5, and GPT-5) that fall outside the current MDL scope.¹⁷ In January 2026, Judge Stein affirmed an order compelling OpenAI to produce a de-identified sample of 20 million ChatGPT conversation logs, rejecting OpenAI’s argument that a keyword-filtered subset would suffice.¹⁸ OpenAI maintains that AI training constitutes transformative fair use.¹⁹

Other Active AI Cases

Visual artists have a trial set against Stability AI for April 2027. Getty Images is suing Stability AI, and music publishers are suing Anthropic.²⁰ The New York Times filed a separate lawsuit against Perplexity AI in December 2025, with Dow Jones and the Chicago Tribune bringing their own claims against the search startup.¹³ At the same time, publishers are signing licensing deals: the Times reportedly reached a $20 to $25 million licensing arrangement with Amazon, and Google has struck a deal with Reddit.

Juries Are Finding Social Media Harmful to Children

Late March 2026 brought the first trial verdicts holding social media companies liable for harming children through addictive platform design.

In New Mexico, a jury found Meta in violation of the state’s Unfair Practices Act on March 24, 2026, following a lawsuit by Attorney General Raúl Torrez that used undercover accounts posing as children. Jurors found thousands of violations, resulting in a $375 million penalty. A second trial phase addressing public nuisance claims and potential court-ordered remedies was expected in May 2026.²¹

The next day, a jury in Los Angeles Superior Court found Meta and Google negligent for designing Instagram and YouTube with features (infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendations) that caused mental health distress in a young user identified as K.G.M. The jury awarded $6 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages, with Meta responsible for 70%. That case was a bellwether for approximately 2,000 consolidated lawsuits.²² A separate federal trial involving school districts and parents is scheduled for summer 2026 in the Northern District of California.²³ More than 40 state attorneys general have also filed their own lawsuits against Meta over the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook.²¹

TikTok Divestiture Has Closed

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” on January 17, 2025, finding the divestiture requirement was narrowly tailored to address national security concerns about Chinese government access to the data of 170 million American users.²⁴ The deal closed on January 22, 2026. A new entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, now operates the U.S. platform under a seven-member, majority-American board. Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Emirati-backed MGX each hold a 15% stake, ByteDance retains 19.9%, and a group including the family office of Michael Dell owns the remainder. The recommendation algorithm was licensed to the U.S. owners and is being retrained exclusively on American user data within Oracle’s cloud environment.²⁵ Senator Ed Markey has called for a congressional investigation into whether the arrangement truly severs the algorithm from Chinese influence.²⁶

xAI Whistleblower Suit

Devin Kim, one of xAI’s earliest employees, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against xAI and SpaceX in California state court on June 9, 2026, alleging he was fired in retaliation for raising safety concerns about the Grok chatbot. Kim claims he repeatedly warned that Grok lacked adequate safeguards against racial and political bias, misinformation, and outputs that could facilitate bioterrorism. The complaint names xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba as the supervisor who allegedly retaliated, citing an incident in August 2025 in which Ba allegedly attempted to circumvent EU safety regulations for a model release and dismissed safety concerns by stating, “AI will kill us all anyway.” Kim says he was terminated in mid-September 2025, just before he was scheduled to present safety findings to company leadership.²⁷ The suit distinguishes between Ba’s alleged conduct and Elon Musk, claiming Musk had directed the company to follow safety processes.²⁸ Neither xAI nor SpaceX has publicly responded.

State Attorneys General Are Driving Privacy Enforcement

State AGs are pursuing technology companies with increasing frequency on consumer protection, privacy, and children’s safety grounds.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a $1.375 billion settlement with Google in May 2025 over allegations the company unlawfully collected and stored personal data, including location, biometrics, and browsing history, without consent.⁹
California settled with General Motors in May 2026 for $12.75 million, in what the state described as the largest CCPA penalty to date, over allegations GM sold geolocation and driving behavior data to third-party data brokers without notice or consent.²⁹
Texas sued Netflix in May 2026, alleging the streaming company misled users about data collection (including children’s data) and used dark patterns to create addictive platform design.²⁹
California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued 23andMe over a 2023 data breach that exposed genetic and personal information of approximately 7 million U.S. customers.²⁹
Texas secured a temporary restraining order against Discord over alleged “deceptive safety practices.”³⁰

Federal AI Policy and the TAKE IT DOWN Act

Congress has yet to pass comprehensive AI regulation. More than 150 AI-related bills were introduced in the 118th Congress, and none became law.³¹ In March 2026, the White House released a “National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence” recommending that Congress not create a new federal rulemaking body, urging federal preemption of state AI laws that impose “undue burdens,” and taking the position that AI training on copyrighted material does not violate copyright law.³²

One federal law has taken effect. The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed on May 19, 2025, criminalizes the knowing distribution of nonconsensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfakes, and requires platforms to remove such content within 48 hours of a valid request. The FTC began civil enforcement on May 19, 2026, with violations carrying penalties of up to $53,088 each. The agency has already sent warning letters to at least 15 companies.³³ Colorado, Illinois, and Connecticut have each enacted new AI-related legislation in 2026, addressing disclosure requirements for consequential AI decisions, mandatory safety audits, and regulation of AI chatbots used by children.²⁹

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Department of Justice Wins Significant Remedies Against Google
2
Courthouse News Service. Google Urges DC Circuit to Overturn Search Monopoly Remedies
3
U.S. Department of Justice. Department of Justice Prevails in Landmark Antitrust Case Against Google
4
Digiday. Everything You Need to Know About the Closing Stages of Google’s Ad Tech Antitrust Trial
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Reuters. Apple Loses Bid to Dismiss US Smartphone Monopoly Case
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9to5Mac. Apple Says US Is Refusing to Produce Federal Agency Documents in DOJ Antitrust Case
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Supreme Court of the United States. Apple-Epic SCT Application to Stay Mandate
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SCOTUSblog. Court Turns Down Apple’s Request to Pause Order Holding It in Contempt
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Spectrum Local News. Google Settles With Epic Games With Offer to Lower Its App Store Commissions
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Bloomberg Law. Amazon Poised for Late 2026 Trial in FTC Monopoly Power Lawsuit
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Courthouse News Service. Amazon Loses Effort to Dodge Federal Antitrust Charges
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. FTC v. Microsoft Corp. and Activision Blizzard, Inc.
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The New York Times. New York Times Perplexity AI Lawsuit
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Courthouse News Service. Authors, Publishers Near Final Approval of $1.5 Billion Anthropic Copyright Settlement
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Susman Godfrey. Susman Godfrey Secures $1.5 Billion Settlement in Landmark AI Piracy Case
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Court Listener. In Re OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation
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Loeb & Loeb LLP. In Re OpenAI Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation
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Ars Technica. NYT v. OpenAI Order
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OpenAI. OpenAI Response to New York Times
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AI Business. AI Lawsuits in 2026: Settlements, Licensing Deals, Litigation
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PBS NewsHour. Jury Finds Meta’s Platforms Are Harmful to Children in First Wave of Social Media Addiction Lawsuits
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NPR. Meta YouTube Social Media Trial Verdict
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CNBC. Meta YouTube Los Angeles California Verdict
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SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban
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BBC News. TikTok Closes Deal to Split US Operations
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CNN. TikTok US Deal Closes
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TechCrunch. xAI Fired an Engineer Who Raised Alarms About Grok Safety, New Lawsuit Claims
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The Guardian. Elon Musk Engineer Fired Grok Lawsuit
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Clark Hill PLC. Right to Know
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Greenberg Traurig Data Privacy Dish. Texas Attorney General Announces Investigation Into Drone Company
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Brennan Center for Justice. Artificial Intelligence Legislation Tracker
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The White House. National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence Legislative Recommendations
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Federal Trade Commission. TAKE IT DOWN Act Enforcement Starts Now