The 5th Circuit said the FTC’s deceptive advertising claims are “traditional actions at law and equity and thus involve private rights that demand adjudication in an Article III court.” The court rejected the FTC’s argument that the claims involve public rights that may be adjudicated by administrative agencies.

“In sum, there is overwhelming evidence that Section 5 of the FTC Act did not create a new duty for merchants to refrain from deceptive advertising,” the 5th Circuit said. “That duty long predated the FTC Act and could be enforced by private parties in actions at common law or equity for fraud, deceit, or unfair competition.”

FCC power to issue fines also at risk

In Jarkesy, the Supreme Court said that “matters concerning private rights may not be removed from Article III courts. If a suit is in the nature of an action at common law, then the matter presumptively concerns private rights, and adjudication by an Article III court is mandatory.”

By contrast, matters involving public rights may be handled exclusively by the executive and legislative branches without a court’s involvement. Categories that fall within public rights include: “collection of revenue; aspects of customs law; immigration law; relations with Indian tribes; the administration of public lands; and the granting of public benefits,” the Jarkesy ruling said.

The Jarkesy precedent that helped Intuit beat the FTC is also at the center of a case in which AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to issue fines for selling customer location data without their users’ consent. The mobile carriers’ fight against FCC punishment is set to be decided by the Supreme Court.

Although current FCC Chairman Brendan Carr voted against the mobile-carrier penalties during the previous administration, the Carr FCC is urging the Supreme Court to uphold his agency’s ability to issue fines. The FCC argues that companies it fines can decline to pay and eventually receive a jury trial when the government sues to obtain the fine.

“Forfeitures are among the FCC’s most important enforcement tools,” the FCC told the Supreme Court on Friday. “Eliminating them could mean that many vital rules—such as those protecting privacy, combating robocalls, and regulating broadcasting—go effectively unenforced.”

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Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, on Saturday appeared to threaten the licenses of broadcasters reporting on President Donald Trump’s war in Iran after the president crafted a lengthy Truth Social post against the “Fake News Media.”

Trump, in a post on Saturday, took exception to an “intentionally misleading headline by the Fake News Media about” five tanker planes that were hit in an Iranian strike on Saudi Arabia.

The Wall Street Journal reported the story Saturday, citing two U.S. officials.

“The tankers were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, the officials said,” the Journal reports. “U.S. Central Command declined to comment. The tankers were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired, one of the officials said. No one was killed in the strikes.”

Trump, in his post, argued “the planes were not ‘struck or ‘destroyed,’” and called out “The Wall Street Journal (in particular)” who he claims “actually want use to lose the war.”

The Journal‘s report included Trump’s Saturday Truth Social post.

In response to the president’s rant, Carr issued a lengthy post on X accusing broadcasters of “running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news.”

“The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” Carr wrote, arguing it was “in their own business interests” to “correct course” on their reporting.

“The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves,” Carr claimed. “It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.”

Journalists and media observers noted Carr’s post seemed to threaten news organizations that report stories the White House would rather not be reported.

“The state doesn’t like the war coverage, threatens the license of the broadcasters,” the Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted.

“The Trump administration is now threatening the licenses of broadcasters whose news coverage — apparently about the war — it deems to be ‘fake,’” CNN’s Aaron Blake wrote.

It wasn’t the only media criticism Trump engaged in on Saturday. In a separate Truth Social post, the president shared an image of how he’s “reshaping the media” including a section of media companies and individual people who are now “gone.”

One of the people mentioned in that Trump post, former CNN host Jim Acosta, said he’s “honored to be included” in the graphic.

“But seriously what’s wrong with this guy?” Acosta asked. “This is some goofy stuff.”

The post Trump FCC chief threatens broadcasters’ licenses over Iran war coverage appeared first on MASSIVE News.

“Regarding the website update timing, the new device unlocking policy went into effect on January 27th,” the Verizon statement said. “Customers purchasing or upgrading from that date were (and are being) presented with the full terms of the new policy at their point of sale. We’ll make sure all our public-facing info is also clear and consistent across channels.”

Wrong terms still presented to phone buyers

But information still is not “clear and consistent across channels,” even when it comes to terms presented directly to phone buyers. For example, the version of the device unlocking policy on Verizon’s webpage for ordering an iPhone 17 says the 35-day delay only applies when a customer uses a Verizon gift card to buy a phone or pay off the remaining balance. We found the same language today in Verizon’s listings for other iPhones and devices made by Google, Samsung, and Motorola.

This version of the policy presented to phone buyers would lead a consumer to believe that a phone will be unlocked automatically once the device financing agreement balance is paid in full, as long as a gift card isn’t used. That is not accurate, as we described in this article and our article last week.

In one more development we found after this article published, Verizon changed its device unlocking policy again today and updated the effective date to February 18. The new policy is similar to an older version; it details the 35-day unlocking delay after gift card payments but deletes the part that applied the 35-day delay to payments made online or in the Verizon app. This omission is curious because Verizon’s statements to other media outlets indicate that the 35-day delay is still in place for online payments.

The omission is apparently explained by new language in the policy that says, “A secure payment method is required to unlock a device immediately when paying the full device balance.” But as far as we know, the only “secure payment methods” that currently result in an immediate unlock require paying in a Verizon corporate store. While a separate Verizon FAQ still describes the in-store limitation, a user reading the policy after today’s update may be given the false belief that paying off a device on Verizon’s website will result in an immediate unlock.

The Verizon unlocking policy discussed so far in this article is for postpaid customers. Verizon’s policy for prepaid customers locks phones to its network “until the completion of 365 days of paid and active service.”

AT&T’s unlocking policy says postpaid phones purchased at least 60 days ago can be unlocked when the device is paid in full. The T-Mobile policy says postpaid phones active on the T-Mobile network for at least 40 days can be unlocked after being paid in full. AT&T imposes a six-month waiting period for unlocking prepaid phones, while T-Mobile has a 365-day waiting period for prepaid phones.

This article was updated with another change to Verizon’s unlocking policy and a statement reported by PCMag.

The post Verizon acknowledges “pain” of new unlock policy, suggests change is coming appeared first on MASSIVE News.