Ambika Kumar of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP has worked on multiple high-profile online free speech cases, including successfully halting a groundbreaking California law surrounding online privacy protections for children, earning her a spot as one of the 2024 Law360 Technology MVPs.

Her biggest accomplishment:

Kumar said her biggest accomplishment in the past year was blocking the enforcement of California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a law passed unanimously by the California Legislature in 2022 that required companies with online services or products "likely to be accessed by children" to follow increased privacy and data protection restrictions.

Serving as lead counsel on behalf of NetChoice LLC, a trade group whose members include Google, Amazon, Meta Platforms and TikTok, she and her team argued the restrictions unconstitutionally regulate the content and speech of the companies targeted in the law.

Kumar said that because the law was popular and presented as regulating privacy rather than content, she and her team had to successfully convince the court the case centered around speech since courts "do not override legislative mandates lightly."

U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman found that while the law's stated purpose of protecting children online is important, NetChoice successfully showed the provisions outlined in the law did "not pass constitutional muster."

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