Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing for fostering what the agency describes as a "frat boy" workplace. As first reported by Bloomberg Law, the DFEH sued the gaming giant after a two-year investigation wherein it came to the conclusion that the company discriminated against female employees. In addition to receiving smaller salaries than their male counterparts, female employees were also allegedly subjected to constant sexual harassment.

The DFEH enumerated several findings from its investigation in its complaint (PDF). Activision Blizzard's workforce is only about 20 percent women, and very few of them reach top roles in the company, the court document reads. Further, those who do reach higher roles earn less salary and total compensation than their male peers. Other female employees in non-executive roles are also paid less, promoted more slowly and terminated more quickly.

DFEH also said that the defendant's "frat boy" culture is a "breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women." Female employees constantly have to fend off unwanted sexual comments, the agency wrote. They have to endure being groped during "cube crawls," in which male employees would drink alcohol as they make their way around various cubicles, as well. The document mentioned one particularly egregious case, in which a female employee took her own life during a business trip with a male supervisor who brought sex toys with him on the trip. According to Bloomberg, that employee was severely harassed prior to her death, with her nude photos passed around during a company holiday party.

Activision Blizzard's HR department received a lot of harassment, discrimination and retaliation complaints, the DFEH said. However, the defendant allegedly failed to take "effective remedial measures in response" to them. Also, people were apparently discouraged from making complaints, since human resource personnel were known to be close to the alleged harassers.

The state agency has filed the lawsuit to force the video game titan to comply with California's workplace protections. It's also seeking unpaid wages and pay adjustments for female employees.

Activision Blizzard, however, denies DEFH's allegations. In a statement, the company said that the agency's lawsuit "includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard's past." It called the DFEH's complaint "inaccurate" and described the lawsuit as the "type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State's best businesses out of California."

The whole statement, courtesy of Kotaku, reads:

"We value diversity and strive to foster a workplace that offers inclusivity for everyone. There is no place in our company or industry, or any industry, for sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind. We take every allegation seriously and investigate all claims. In cases related to misconduct, action was taken to address the issue.

The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. They were required by law to adequately investigate and to have good faith discussions with us to better understand and to resolve any claims or concerns before going to litigation, but they failed to do so. Instead, they rushed to file an inaccurate complaint, as we will demonstrate in court. We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family. While we find this behavior to be disgraceful and unprofessional, it is unfortunately an example of how they have conducted themselves throughout the course of their investigation. It is this type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State’s best businesses out of California.

The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today. Over the past several years and continuing since the initial investigation started, we’ve made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams. We’ve updated our Code of Conduct to emphasize a strict non-retaliation focus, amplified internal programs and channels for employees to report violations, including the “ASK List” with a confidential integrity hotline, and introduced an Employee Relations team dedicated to investigating employee concerns. We have strengthened our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and combined our Employee Networks at a global level, to provide additional support. Employees must also undergo regular anti-harassment training and have done so for many years.

We put tremendous effort in creating fair and rewarding compensation packages and policies that reflect our culture and business, and we strive to pay all employees fairly for equal or substantially similar work. We take a variety of proactive steps to ensure that pay is driven by non-discriminatory factors. For example, we reward and compensate employees based on their performance, and we conduct extensive anti-discrimination trainings including for those who are part of the compensation process.

We are confident in our ability to demonstrate our practices as an equal opportunity employer that fosters a supportive, diverse, and inclusive workplace for our people, and we are committed to continuing this effort in the years to come. It is a shame that the DFEH did not want to engage with us on what they thought they were seeing in their investigation."

France has fined Google €500 million ($590 million) in the latest antitrust ruling against the company. Authorities say Google did not reach a fair agreement with publishers to use snippets of their content on Google News, despite a 2020 order for the company to do so.

Google said last September it would not pay French publishers for search results and that it would only show basic news results ahead of the country bringing in new rules based on the European Union's copyright framework. Google and French newspaper group Alliance de la presse d'information générale agreed on a payment framework for news previews in January, and it has been in discussions with Agence France-Presse and magazine publishers. However, regulators said Google's payment offers were "negligible," as Bloomberg reports.

Isabelle de Silva, head of competition regulator Autorité de la concurrence, said Google offered to pay less for news than it does for weather data or dictionary definitions. She said the level of the fine "takes into account the exceptional seriousness of the breaches observed."

Regulators also gave Google two months to enter talks with publishers within two months of them making new requests for discussions. Otherwise, the company faces daily fines of up to €900,000 ($1.33 million). A ruling on the substance of the case, which the regulator is expected to issue later this year, may lead to further fines against Google.

The company can appeal the decision. Google believes it “acted in good faith throughout the entire process,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg.

This marks the second-largest antitrust fine that France has dished out to a single company, and it’s far from the first time the country has penalized Google. Just last month, Google said it would change its advertising rules in France and pay a €220 million ($267 million) fine amid claims the company abused its online ad power.

In 2019, Google agreed to pay nearly €1 billion ($1.10 billion) after failing to fully disclose its taxable activities in France. The same year, French regulators fined Google $167 million over allegedly unclear ad rules and $57 million following claims of General Data Protection Regulation violations.

Following last year's announcement of the Google News Showcase initiative, Google has reached deals with publishers in other countries to pay for their content, including in the UK, Canada and Australia, which required digital platforms to make such agreements. The company is facing antitrust issues in other jurisdictions, including severallawsuitsin the US.

Huawei and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) have settled their long-standing patent dispute. The disagreement dates back to 2019 when Huawei said it approached Verizon about licensing some of its technologies. After nearly a year of negotiations, talks between the two companies broke down on January 21st, 2020, and Huawei went on to file multiple lawsuits against the telecom in courts across Texas. At the center of the feud were 12 standards-relevant patents that Huawei said Verizon was using in its infrastructure. At the time, Verizon dismissed the lawsuits, claiming they were “nothing more than a PR stunt.”

It has since changed its tune. “Verizon is happy with the settlement reached with Huawei involving patent lawsuits. While terms of the settlement are not being disclosed, our team did an outstanding job bringing this protracted matter to a close,” Verizon spokesperson Rich Young said in a statement.

For Huawei, this is precisely the type of outcome the company had hoped for when it announced at the start of 2021 that it planned to monetize its patent portfolio more aggressively. While the US and other parts of the world have barred it from their national 5G networks, the Chinese company is ideally situated to make money on licensing fees. It has among the most 5G-related standards-relevant patents of any company in the world. To that end, it estimated the licensing strategy could help it generate as much as $1.3 billion in additional revenue between 2019 and the end of 2021.

The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have charged a man they claim sold insider trading tips on the dark web. Apostolos Trovias allegedly used anonymizing software, pseudonyms (he is said to have gone by the nickname "The Bull") and bitcoin to mask his identity.

According to the complaint, Trovias sold stock information individually and on a subscription basis on defunct black market AlphaBay and other sites on the dark web. He's said to have styled himself as a “hedge fund insider” who worked in a trading branch as an office clerk.

In 2017, not long before authorities seized and shut down AlphaBay, Trovias allegedly sold an undercover Internal Revenue Service agent pre-release earnings report information for at least one publicly traded company. He is facing one count of money laundering (which has a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison) and one count of securities fraud, which could lead to a prison sentence of 25 years if Trovias is convicted.

The complaint was filed in February but kept sealed until after Trovias was apprehended. He was arrested in Peru in May, according to a filing spotted by PCMag, which notes the US Government was working on extraditing him.

Others have been charged or convicted in connection with AlphaBay activity. In February 2020, feds charged Larry Harmon for allegedly running a $300 million bitcoin money laundering scheme. Last September, Bryan Connor Herrell was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Herrell was a moderator for AlphaBay and resolved disputes between vendors and customers. He pled guilty to conspiring to engage in a racketeer influenced corrupt organization.

After nearly two years, Amazon’s highly public legal feud with the US government over the Pentagon’s decision to award Microsoft a $10 billion cloud contract in 2019 is over. According to Reuters, a federal judge dismissed the challenge on Friday with no objection from the company. The dismissal follows Tuesday’s announcement that the Department of Defense had canceled JEDI, the program at the center of the legal battle, to pursue a new multi-vendor project that would see both Amazon and Microsoft awarded contracts.

"We understand and agree with the DoD’s decision,” an Amazon spokesperson told Engadget after the announcement. “Unfortunately, the contract award was not based on the merits of the proposals and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement."

When Amazon first challenged the Defense Department’s handling of JEDI, it alleged the Pentagon had shown "unmistakable bias" in the evaluation process. The company accused former President Donald Trump of improperly pressuring the agency to award the contract to Microsoft due to his dislike of Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post. In 2020, The Pentagon’s inspector general released a report that said it had found no evidence that the Trump administration had interfered with the procurement process but noted at the same time that several White House officials had not cooperated with the probe.

The mastermind behind what the government says is one of the largest cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes prosecuted in the US has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. While crypto scams have been getting increasingly common, Swedish citizen Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson defrauded thousands of victims and stole tens of millions of dollars over a period that lasted almost a decade. He pleaded guilty to securities and wire fraud, as well as money laundering charges on March 4th. 

According to the Department of Justice, Karlsson ran his fraudulent investment scheme from 2011 until he was arrested in Thailand in 2019. He targeted financially insecure individuals, such as seniors, persuading them to use cryptocurrency to purchase shares in a business he called "Eastern Metal Securities." Based on information from court documents, he promised victims huge payouts tied to the price of gold, but the money they handed over wasn't invested at all. It was moved to Karlsson's personal bank accounts instead and used to purchase expensive homes and even resorts in Thailand.

To keep his scheme running for almost a decade, he'd rebrand and would show victims account statements in an effort to convince them that their funds are secure. Karlsson would then give them various excuses for payout delays and even falsely claimed to be working with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During the sentencing, US District Judge Charles R. Breyer ordered his Thai resorts and accounts to be forfeited. He was also ordered to pay his victims in the amount of $16,263,820.

Acting US Attorney Stephanie Hinds of the Northern District of California said:

"The investigation into Roger Karlsson’s fraud uncovered a frighteningly callous scheme that lasted more than a decade during which Karlsson targeted thousands of victims, including financially vulnerable seniors, to callously rob them of their assets and all to fuel an extravagant lifestyle surrounded by luxury condominiums and lavish international vacations. The court's decision to order a 180-month prison term reflects the fact that Karlsson’s cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme is one of the largest to be sentenced to date and ensures that Karlsson now will have plenty of time to think about the harm he has caused to his victims."

Google has yet another antitrust lawsuit on its hands. Politico reports 36 states and Washington DC have banded together to sue the company over its handling of the Play Store. They say Google's control over the marketplace violates US antitrust law.  

This latest action is the fourth antitrust lawsuit launched against Google following three similar claims in 2020. In December, a group of 38 states and territories led by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed antitrust charges against the company over its search business. The company is also the subject of a Department of Justice probe.     

We've reached out to Google for comment, and we'll update this article when we hear back from the company.       

Developing...

As expected, former President Donald announced on Wednesday he plans to file class action lawsuits against Facebook, Google and Twitter, as well as the CEOs of each respective company. Trump announced the legal bid at a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, promising the case would lead to an "end of the shadow banning, a stop to the silencing and the cancelling that you know so well." Trump and his lawyers, many of whom he said come from the to tobacco industry, plan to file the cases in the Southern District of Florida. Trump alleges the tech giants violated his First Amendment rights.   

Developing...

Florida's social media 'deplatforming' law that would've taken effect on Thursday has been temporarily blocked by a federal court. US District Judge Robert Hinkle has granted a preliminary injunction to stop "the parts of the legislation that are pre-empted or violate the First Amendment" from being enforced, according to AP and The New York Times. The law would give the state the right to fine social media companies like Facebook up to $250,000 a day if they ban or remove the account of a statewide political candidate. They could also be fined up to $25,000 a day for banning a local office candidate.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis proposed the law shortly after Facebook, Instagram and Twitter banned former President Donald Trump. Republican politicians have long accused mainstream social media platforms of having an anti-conservative bias. After the bill successfully went through Florida's legislative house and senate, DeSantis signed it into law back in May. While the law targets the world's biggest social networks, the authors made sure Disney+ won't get caught up in it by making an exemption for theme park owners. As AP notes, the Walt Disney World located outside Orlando is one of the state's biggest employers. 

The entities that filed the lawsuit to challenge the legislation were NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association — lobbying groups that represent Facebook, Google and other tech giants. Judge Hinkle explained that the plaintiffs would likely win the lawsuit on their claim that the new law violates the First Amendment if the case went to trial.

According to Hinkle:

"The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards — speech they otherwise would not host — and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would...

The legislation now at issue was an effort to rein in social-media providers deemed too large and too liberal. Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate governmental interest."

Google is tightening its ad screening rules in the UK after a steep rise in fraudulent adverts online during the pandemic. The search giant has announced that starting in the fall it will only run ads for financial products and services from sources that have been cleared by the UK's financial watchdog. 

Google said it will update its policy from August 30th and begin enforcing the rules a week later on September 6th. At that point, advertisers will have to demonstrate that they are authorized by the UK Financial Conduct Authority or qualify for its limited exemptions. According to Google, the requirement covers financial products and services that go beyond the regulator's ambit. 

The decision didn't happen overnight, however. Google has been on the end of mounting criticism from regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups over its perceived lack of action against scrupulous ads. According to trade body UK Finance, investment scam cases on search engines saw a 32 percent increase last year. These typically involve criminals duping victims into moving their money to a fictitious fund (such as a pension pot) or to pay for a fake investment. Losses incurred from the fake ads totaled over £135 million. 

Meanwhile, the FCA threatened to take legal action against Google and social media companies after it issued 1,200 warnings about fraudulent ads on their platforms, double the amount from 2019. The regulator told a parliamentary committee that it was able to start taking action in the wake of Brexit. In the past, the FCA had been bound by EU rules on financial ads that did not apply to online platforms.

Others blamed Google's system for the failings. UK consumer group Which? found that 51 percent of the 1,870 search engine users it surveyed didn't know how to report suspicious ads in search listings. The perceived inertia from Google led some lawmakers to claim that it was content to continue profiting from the bogus ads. MPs told The Guardian that the company was benefiting from online scammers who paid to host ads on its platforms. While the FCA had also paid Google more than £600,000 ($830,000) in 2020 and 2021 to run ‘anti-scam’ ads.

For its part, Google claims it has improved its ad screening rules using a mix of machine learning and human review. The tech giant removed 3.1 billion adverts that violated its policies in 2020 according to its ad transparency report. It also began verifying advertisers in January by requiring them to submit legal identification, business incorporation documents and proof of the country in which they operate. Back in 2018, Google followed in Facebook's footsteps by banning cryptocurrency ads.

“This new update builds on significant work in partnership with the FCA over the last 18 months to help tackle this issue,” Ronan Harris, vice president and MD, Google UK and Ireland, said in a blog post. “Today’s announcement reflects significant progress in delivering a safer experience for users, publishers and advertisers. While we understand that this policy update will impact a range of advertisers in the financial services space, our utmost priority is to keep users safe on our platforms — particularly in an area so disproportionately targeted by fraudsters.”