The New Wave of Web Tracking Litigation: Wiretap Statutes, VPPA Risk, and Consent Strategies — The Consumer Finance Podcast
On January 13, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued a significant opinion in Lisota v. Heartland Dental, LLC and RingCentral, Inc., a case involving popular AI-enhanced recording tools in...more
In a significant win for electronic communication providers that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) as part of their core functions, the Northern District of Illinois held that a defendant’s AI transcription and analytics...more
In 2025, many courts assessing claims under the federal Wiretap Act confronted a common fact pattern—use of modern web‑tracking technologies (e.g., pixels, session replay scripts, analytics tags) that contemporaneously...more
A blend of evolving judicial interpretation, aggressive plaintiffs’ counsel, and decades-old statutory language has brought new life to the Florida Security of Communications Act (FSCA) as a vehicle for challenging...more
A California federal court recently allowed a Federal Wiretap Act case to proceed against Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, opening a potential avenue for a nationwide class action against the theme park. The court’s...more
In this post: (1) Selection of law in a choice-of-law forum can defeat privacy claims; (2) The Arizona Court of Appeals shuts down “spy pixel” litigation; (3) Multiple decisions provide guidelines as to when claims are likely...more
Over the last several years, plaintiffs’ attorneys and other individuals have used antiquated wiretapping laws, including California’s 1967 wiretapping act, to allege that businesses with websites utilizing third parties and...more
Companies of all types are deploying chatbots using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). While these tools offer significant potential benefits, they also present legal and regulatory risks that must be managed. GenAI...more
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion affirming the dismissal of a class action complaint asserting both California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and California Medical Information Act (CMIA) claims,...more
In this episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, Chris Willis is joined by colleagues Jason Manning, Angelo Stio, and Rob Jenkin to unpack the surge of litigations arising from the use of tracking technologies (e.g., cookies,...more
Lawsuits are rapidly multiplying against website operators over how user information is collected and shared. Plaintiffs are increasingly creative in asserting that website tracking tools, especially those tied to search...more
Otter.ai is facing a federal class action in California alleging that its AI transcription tool, Otter Notetaker, secretly recorded private conversations on popular video conferencing platforms without proper consent. The...more
In late May, Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on summary judgment motions filed by Meta and Flo Health Inc.—both defendants in the ongoing Frasco v. Flo Health, Inc....more
Video game developer Ubisoft, Inc. came out on top earlier this month in the Northern District of California when a judge dismissed, with prejudice, a class action claiming that the company’s use of third-party website pixels...more
As the privacy litigation landscape continues to take shape, search bars have quietly become a Trojan horse in online data collection, carrying new legal theories into the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) arena. The...more
In 2024, plaintiffs across the United States filed various class action cases related to web tracking technology employed by companies to enhance user experience on their websites and to improve the efficacy of their...more
Amid the continued wave of consumer class action lawsuits targeting the use of cookies, pixels, beacons, and other tracking tools on organizations’ websites, a recent decision from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court...more
In recent months, a wave of lawsuits has swept across the nation, targeting websites for allegedly violating state wiretapping laws through their use of tracking software. Despite none of these statutes explicitly addressing...more
In a critical new decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has confirmed that the state’s anti-wiretapping statute does not extend to website tracking technologies. In Vita v. New England Baptist Hospital, the Court...more
In a long-awaited decision affecting the scope of privacy protections in Massachusetts, on October 24, 2024, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) held that collecting and transmitting user browsing activities,...more
Over the past decade, businesses and institutions with public-facing websites have increasingly turned to internet tracking technologies, such as cookies, pixels, and session replay tools, to optimize their websites and offer...more
Keypoint: Massachusetts’ highest court ruled the use of software that tracks users’ activity on its website does not violate the state’s Wiretap Act, which was intended to prevent the recording or interception of...more
In a significant decision for website operators, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court clarified that tracking users’ web activity does not constitute illegal wiretapping under the state’s Wiretap Act. The court found that...more
In a closely watched decision, the highest court in Massachusetts has rejected the theory that third-party website tracking technology violates G. L. c. 272, § 99, the Massachusetts Wiretap Act....more
Businesses that use website tracking software to monitor activity for marketing purposes must comply with a growing list of state laws – but does that include a nearly 60-year-old Massachusetts law requiring consent to record...more