- There has been a recent surge of privacy class action lawsuits under the Arizona Telephone, Utility, and Communication Service Records Act targeting the use of common email marketing analytics technologies.
- Defendants are asserting standard defenses including lack of Article III standing as well as challenging the 2007 Arizona law’s applicability to email tracking pixels.
Privacy Litigation
Court Rejects Claims that Website’s Live Chat Feature Violates California’s Prohibitions on Wiretapping and Eavesdropping
By Amy Gordon, Leslie Shanklin & Jeff Warshafsky on
- Central District of California dismisses lawsuit alleging that a third-party’s interception of communications over a website’s live chat feature violated California’s wiretapping and eavesdropping prohibitions.
- Important to the Court’s holding was its finding that the code used by the third party to acquire and transmit the contents of the chat communications was not necessarily used to intercept the communications while they were “in transit” but rather to store them after they were received.
From Skincare to Spyware: L’Occitane’s CIPA War Against the Plaintiffs’ Bar
By Aaron Francis on
While French skincare company L’Occitane (the “Company”) successfully thwarted a mass arbitration effort by plaintiffs’ firm Zimmerman Reed and approximately 3,000 customers (the “Claimants”), the Southern District of California Court presiding over the matter indicated that the Company’s case against them was on the verge of dismissal. L’Occitane v. Zimmerman Reed, et al., No. 2:24-cv-01103 (C.D. Cal. April 15, 2024).
Bidding Farewell, For Now: Google’s Ad Auction Class Certification Victory
By Aaron Francis on
A federal judge in the Northern District of California delivered a blow to a potential class action lawsuit against Google over its ad auction practices. The lawsuit, which allegedly involved tens of millions of Google account holders, claimed Google’s practices in its real-time bidding (RTB) auctions violated users’ privacy rights. But U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers declined to certify the class of consumers, pointing to deficiencies in the plaintiffs’ proposed class definition.
Privacy Class Action Spotlight: Latest Wave of Wiretap Class Actions Continues Despite Dismissals as Plaintiffs Try New Approaches
By Danielle Brooks, Leslie Shanklin & Ryan P. Blaney on
- Over a hundred cases are pending from the wave of privacy class actions that commenced last year alleging violations of state wiretap statutes based on use of website session replay, chatbot and pixel technologies.
- Plaintiffs’ firms are continuing to file new cases based on chatbot and pixel tech despite an increasing number of dismissals while also trying new approaches focused on email marketing tech and identity graphing.
Shining a Light on the Corporate Transparency Act: FinCEN’s Rules for Beneficial Ownership Reporting
On January 1, 2021, Congress enacted the Corporate Transparency Act as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 to “better enable critical national security, intelligence, and law enforcement efforts to counter money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and other illicit activity.” FinCEN issued the final rule on Beneficial Ownership…
Standing to Sue: Is Theft of Drivers’ License Numbers Sufficient to Allege Imminent Threat of Future Harm?
Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California recently dismissed a putative class action lawsuit in which plaintiffs claimed they faced an imminent threat of future of harm in the form of identity theft and fraud because their personal information, specifically their driver’s license numbers, may have been compromised…
Paying the Ransom in Response to a Ransomware Attack can Sometimes Backfire
By Nolan Goldberg & Margaret Ukwu on
One of the key decisions that needs to be made in the aftermath of a successful ransomware attack is whether or not the victim organization can or should pay the ransom. Of course, there are many considerations that go into such a decision – for example, whether the payment is…