Mealey's Data Privacy : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Data Privacy

December 19, 2023
DOJ To High Court: No 1st Amendment Violation In Barring X Corp.’s Report

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A gag order preventing X Corp. (formerly Twitter Inc.) from disclosing certain information regarding its compliance with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s surveillance program complied with strict scrutiny and did not violate the company’s rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a brief opposing the social network operator’s petition for certiorari filed on behalf of the federal government.
December 15, 2023
Year-Old Class Certification Ruling Filed In Google Assistant Privacy Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Issuing the redacted version of a class certification ruling almost exactly a year after she partly granted the plaintiffs’ certification motion in a consolidated privacy class action over purported eavesdropping by Google LLC’s digital assistant, a California federal judge filed an accompanying order explaining that the delay was due to a clerical error.
December 15, 2023
Court ‘Wrongly Expanded’ Electronic Data Exclusion, Home Depot Tells 6th Circuit

CINCINNATI — Home Depot Inc. filed an appellant brief in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenging an Ohio federal court’s finding that a commercial general liability insurance policy’s electronic data exclusion bars coverage for the retailer’s losses stemming from a 2014 data breach, arguing that the lower court “wrongly expanded the narrow electronic-data exclusion beyond its natural meaning, based on assumed facts outside the record.”
December 13, 2023
9th Circuit Stays Issuance Of Mandate As Facebook Preps Bid For Certiorari

SAN FRANCISCO — After denying a bid from the former Facebook Inc. and certain of its executives for rehearing, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted a motion to stay its mandate as Facebook prepares to file a petition for a writ of certiorari to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the Ninth Circuit’s partial revival of a complaint filed by investors accusing Facebook of making misleading statements about data privacy.
December 13, 2023
Parties In Fingerprint Putative Class Suit Against Employer Announce Dismissal

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An employer accused in a federal court in Illinois of violating that state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by collecting and storing employees’ fingerprints and the son of a deceased employee who brought a putative class complaint filed a joint stipulation of dismissal.
December 06, 2023
9th Circuit Rejects Facebook Bid For Rehearing After Revival Of Investors’ Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — A split panel in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for panel and en banc rehearing from the former Facebook Inc. and certain of its executives after the panel revived some of the claims made by investors in a suit against the company alleging that it misled investors about privacy and data protection, finding that the investors had adequately pleaded that news about Cambridge Analytica and a practice known as “whitelisting” had contributed to two stock drops in 2018.
December 06, 2023
COMMENTARY: The Seventh Circuit Affirms Landmark BIPA Decision In Illinois

By J. Andrew Moss and Jalen Brown
December 04, 2023
Judge Revives Marriott Data Breach Classes, Criticizes Class Action Waiver

GREENBELT, Md. — Almost four months after the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated a class certification ruling in the multidistrict litigation over the massive data breach experienced by Marriott International Inc., a Maryland federal judge reinstated the certified classes, finding that Marriott forfeited the ability to invoke a class action waiver signed by each of the individual plaintiffs.
November 30, 2023
9th Circuit: Class Suit Against Shopify Failed To Show Personal Jurisdiction

SAN FRANCISCO — A putative class complaint accusing a payment processor of violating California privacy and unfair competition laws by concealing that it was collecting, storing and sharing consumers’ personal information failed to establish the trial court’s specific personal jurisdiction over the processor, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, affirming dismissal.
November 27, 2023
Ohio Man’s ‘Legally Frivolous’ Privacy Suit Over Meta Data Sharing Dismissed

CINCINNATI — Adopting a magistrate’s recommendation to dismiss, an Ohio federal judge found that a pro se plaintiff’s “meager allegations” against Meta Platforms Inc. over the 2015 Cambridge Analytica data-sharing incident were insufficient to state a claim against the Facebook operator or the British analytics firm.
November 20, 2023
Louisiana High Court Refuses To Review Ruling In Suit Alleging Insured Stole Files

NEW ORLEANS — The Louisiana Supreme Court refused to disturb a Louisiana appeals court’s finding that a residential mortgage broker’s electronic loan files are “tangible” under state law and, therefore, can be defined as “‘property’ that is susceptible to ‘loss of use’” under a competitor’s business liability insurance policy, allowing to stand the lower court’s reversal of a summary judgment ruling in favor of an insurer that intervened in the broker’s lawsuit alleging that its insured used stolen files to broker mortgage loans for its customers.
November 20, 2023
Dismissal, Protective Order Denied In WhatsApp, NSO Spyware Suit

OAKLAND, Calif. — An Israeli spyware firm saw two of its motions denied by a California federal judge in a computer fraud suit brought against it by WhatsApp Inc., as she denied a motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens and declined to issue a protective order barring much of the discovery sought by the plaintiff.
November 17, 2023
Meta Again Seeks Dismissal Of Privacy, Trespass Claims In Consolidated Pixel Row

SAN FRANCISCO — Two months after Meta Platforms Inc. partly prevailed in a motion to dismiss a consolidated lawsuit over purported data-sharing violations associated with its Pixel product, the tech giant filed a renewed dismissal motion in which it asserts that the plaintiffs did not cure the deficiencies identified by a California federal judge in the previous ruling and “fail to identify any ‘specific, personal or private information they conveyed to their healthcare providers that they reasonably believe Meta received.’”
November 14, 2023
Judge: South Carolina Woman Sufficiently Alleged Data Breach Notice Wasn’t Timely

CHICAGO — Although mostly granting a motion to dismiss putative class claims against a digital marketing firm related to a 2022 data breach, an Illinois federal judge held that one of the plaintiffs whose sensitive personal information (SPI) was exposed in the breach adequately alleged violation of a South Carolina data breach notification law.
November 10, 2023
2 Facebook Users Appeal Final Approval Of $725M Profile-Sharing Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — One month after a California federal judge granted final approval to the $725 million settlement agreement with Meta Platforms Inc. in the consolidated privacy class action over the sharing of Facebook users’ profiles with Cambridge Analytica, two of the social network’s users, who had objected to the settlement, filed a notice on Nov. 9 that they are appealing the approval ruling to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
November 07, 2023
Magistrate Agrees To Seal Sanctions Hearing In Meta Privacy Consolidated Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — The California federal magistrate judge overseeing discovery matters in the putative consolidated class action over the alleged sharing of protected health information (PHI) by Meta Platforms Inc. on Nov. 6 provisionally granted the technology firm’s unopposed motion to seal the hearing over whether it should be subject to sanctions for purportedly not providing complete responses to the plaintiffs’ requests for production (RFPs).
November 07, 2023
3rd Circuit Vacates, Remands Attorney Fees Award In Wawa Data Breach Settlement

PHILADELPHIA — Siding with the lone objector to a settlement of negligence and privacy claims between Wawa Inc. and a class of consumers over a 2019 data breach experienced by the convenience store chain, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in a precedential opinion vacated a $3 million attorney fees award, finding that the trial court did not fully consider all the relevant factors when deeming the award reasonable.
November 06, 2023
1st Amendment, Civil Liberties Amici Back X’s Certiorari Bid Over FBI Surveillance

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Arizona State University (ASU) College of Law First Amendment Clinic filed amicus curiae briefs supporting X Corp. (formerly Twitter Inc.) in its petition for certiorari in which it challenges the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s gag order preventing the social media platform from speaking about its compliance with national security letters (NSLs) they were served with as part of the U.S. government’s domestic surveillance program.
November 02, 2023
9th Circuit: Privacy Claim Over Ford’s Text Collection Fails For Lack Of Injury

SEATTLE — Affirming the dismissal of a putative privacy claim against Ford Motor Co., a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently plead an injury under the Washington Privacy Act (WPA) from the purported collection and retention of text messages in vehicles’ on-board memory because they did not claim that the automaker ever accessed the retained messages.
November 02, 2023
9th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Vizio’s 4th Amended Complaint On Other Grounds

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower federal court’s dismissal of Vizio Inc.’s fourth amended complaint seeking coverage for an underlying $17 million settlement and defense costs arising from class claims alleging unauthorized collections of consumers’ television viewing data, finding that Vizio breached the insurance policy by not soliciting the excess insurer’s consent before settling the underlying lawsuit.
November 01, 2023
Employer Seeks Coverage For Class Action Suit Alleging BIPA Violations

CHICAGO — An employer sued its insurer in an Illinois federal court seeking commercial general liability and umbrella insurance coverage for an underlying putative class action alleging that it violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by disseminating electronic information derived from the scanning of its employees’ biometric identifiers to third parties without their consent.
November 01, 2023
Judge Gives Initial OK To $62 Million Settlement Of Google Location History Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Following a hearing on a preliminary approval motion filed by the plaintiffs in a class action over Google Inc.’s practice of tracking users’ locations without consent, a California federal judge gave an initial thumbs-up to a proposed $62 million settlement of privacy and intrusion claims against the technology giant.
October 26, 2023
Cy Pres Firms Proposed In $62M Settlement Of Google Location History Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A month after moving for preliminary approval of a proposed $62 million settlement of location-tracking privacy class claims against Google Inc., the named plaintiffs filed a supplemental brief in California federal court enumerating 17 potential cy pres recipients of much of that fund.
October 26, 2023
Judge Allows Invasion Of Privacy Claim For Retailer’s Recording Of Customer Chats

LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge refused to dismiss one count for invasion of privacy but dismissed the remainder of a consumer’s putative class claims against a retailer, including for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL), based on the retailer using a third-party company to intercept, duplicate and analyze online chats on the retailer’s website between customers and company representatives.
October 26, 2023
Investors’ Suit Alleging Facebook Lied About User Data Partially Revived

SAN FRANCISCO — A split panel in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals revived some of the claims made by investors in a suit against the former Facebook Inc. alleging that the company misled investors about privacy and data protection, finding that the investors had adequately pleaded that news about Cambridge Analytica and a practice known as “whitelisting” had contributed to two stock drops in 2018.