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. 

  • 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.