A New Jersey federal judge on Tuesday denied data brokers’ requests to dismiss a case brought by state law enforcement officers who sued the companies for failing to take their home addresses and phone numbers off the web.

The defendants had argued that the New Jersey statute under which the defendants sued, known as Daniel’s Law, violates their freedom of speech.

Daniel’s Law blocks the disclosure of home addresses and phone numbers belonging to current and retired police officers, judges, prosecutors and their family members. When that private data is shared, the law mandates that it be removed within 10 days of a “takedown” request.

Failure to delete the data can result in a $1,000 fine per violation, meaning each defendant in this case could be ordered to pay as much as $20 million. A judgement against all 118 data brokers, real estate businesses, marketing companies and other entities being sued could result in at least $2.3 billion in fines, according to court records.

Daniel’s Law was put in place after the 2020 murder of a New Jersey federal judge’s son at her home.

The judge in the lawsuit ruled that the case, filed in February, can proceed because Daniel’s Law does not violate the data brokers’ constitutional right to freedom of speech as they had argued.

“The speech that is restricted is not of public significance [and] the law imposing the restriction serves to further a need of the highest order of the State of New Jersey,” the judge wrote in his 41-page opinion.

“Defendants are simply disagreeing with the Legislature’s policy choices,” he added. “Simply because the law could have been written differently does not make it unconstitutional.”