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First Amendment · Section 230 · AI Liability Nerdy Skynet! June 12, 2026 |
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Coverage: 2026-06-09 through 2026-06-12 · 2 new developments this period |
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Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog) |
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Fifth Circuit Keeps Doing Fifth Circuit Things 📉–SEAT v. Paxton Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog) · 2026-06-09 CommentaryGoldman analyzes a Fifth Circuit opinion in SEAT v. Paxton upholding (or declining to enjoin) Texas's App Store Accountability Act (SB 2420), which requires app stores operated by Apple and Google to age-authenticate users and obtain parental consent. The core doctrinal dispute is whether the Fifth Circuit correctly applied intermediate scrutiny by characterizing app store listings as commercial speech proposing commercial transactions, rather than strict scrutiny as the district court had applied — a classification Goldman argues is factually and legally unsupportable because many apps are non-commercial offerings with no data collection or monetary exchange. The case directly implicates the First Amendment rights of major technology platforms (Apple, Google) as curators and distributors of third-party expressive content, and intersects with the Moody v. NetChoice framework on when platform content distribution constitutes protected editorial activity versus regulable commercial conduct. Key point: The Fifth Circuit's classification of app store listings as commercial speech subject to intermediate scrutiny — rather than protected editorial curation subject to strict scrutiny under Moody v. NetChoice — represents a significant and arguably erroneous departure from controlling First Amendment doctrine governing platform content distribution. |
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Google Search Isn’t a Common Carrier (duh)–Ohio v. Google Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog) · 2026-06-10 CommentaryEric Goldman discusses an Ohio appellate court decision rejecting the state AG's attempt to classify Google Search as a common carrier subject to nondiscrimination obligations, finding no "carrying" (because Google creates an original expressive product through its SRP rather than transporting unaltered third-party content) and no "commoning" (because the absence of user-facing pricing makes traditional rate regulation inapplicable). The decision directly engages the core Moody v. NetChoice question of platform editorial discretion by characterizing Google's search ranking, filtering, and curation as protected expressive activity rather than a public utility service subject to legislative override. This matters for the newsletter because it is a post-Moody application of the compelled-speech/common-carrier doctrinal framework to a major search platform, reinforcing that algorithmic editorial judgment resists common-carrier classification. Key point: The Ohio appellate court held that Google's search results are its own expressive product—not the unaltered carriage of third-party content—foreclosing common-carrier regulation and affirming broad First Amendment protection for search engine editorial discretion. |
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Sources: CourtListener API ·
All 13 federal circuit RSS feeds ·
All 50 state supreme courts + intermediate appellate courts (8 states)
via Justia ·
Eric Goldman · Techdirt |