Legal Alert | Wiretap Laws in the United States
Anti-Wiretap Class Actions Against Website Operators Surge, but Proper Consent Can Reduce Risk
Webinar Recording – Assessing the Surge in Wiretap Litigation
Is Edward Snowden a Whistleblower?
Rajaratnam Judge: Wiretaps in Insider Trading Cases are "Radical"
Businesses just received some good news when a federal court dismissed a California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) claim that aimed to expand the reach of the state’s wiretapping law to cover internet communications. The...more
In a big win for businesses, a California federal court just held that a “tester” plaintiff—someone who visits websites to initiate litigation—cannot bring a claim under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA)....more
In a big win for businesses, a California federal court just held that a “tester” plaintiff – someone who visits websites for purposes of initiating litigation – cannot bring a claim under the California Invasion of Privacy...more
In late March, an online retailer successfully asserted consent as a complete defense to a putative Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act of 1978 (WESCA) class action lawsuit, resulting in the...more
An oft-discussed topic on this blog is the rise in lawsuits asserting illegal wiretapping claims against companies that use technology on their websites to track consumer interactions. Recently, a Pennsylvania federal judge...more
Welcome to the nineteenth installment in our monthly data privacy litigation report. We prepare these reports to provide updates on how courts in the United States have handled emerging data privacy trends. We are covering...more
Keypoint: The Central District of California issues a major victory for website owners facing CIPA-arbitration demands, two decisions address whether a plaintiff consented as a defense to wiretapping claims, three courts in...more
Keypoint: Two California state court decisions have addressed motions to dismiss claims under the novel “pen registry” and “tap and trace” theories, but reached different outcomes after finding different policy considerations...more
The Authors previously published the below client alert on June 8, 2023, analyzing privacy litigation under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and other wiretap statutes in Pennsylvania and Maryland. We provide...more
Numerous new website technologies and tools allow companies to more effectively interact with their customers. These include chatbots, session recording software, tracking pixels (snippets of code that can be used to identify...more
What You Need To Know In A Minute Or Less - The rise in session replay litigation has paved the way for a new wave of website privacy lawsuits: pixel tool litigation. Plaintiffs have increasingly challenged the use of this...more
Keypoint: June 2023 maintained a trend of mostly favorable outcomes for defendants as courts continue to grant motions to dismiss in session replay and VPPA cases. This is the fifth installment in our monthly data privacy...more
What You Need To Know In A Minute Or Less - Throughout this series, we have discussed the recent surge of session replay lawsuits—particularly in Pennsylvania, California, and Florida—and the potential for these cases to...more
Keypoint: In the wake of a recent California decision that allowed claims alleging use of chat functionality on website violated California wiretapping laws, three California district courts have dismissed nearly identical...more
Website session replay technology continues to fuel class action litigation alleging violations of anti-wiretap laws in all-party consent states. In 2021, we issued an alert highlighting that session replay lawsuits were...more
The case of Popa v. Harriet Carter Gifts, Inc. “began with a quest for pet stairs.” Plaintiff Ashley Popa searched Harriet Carter Gifts’ website, added pet stairs to her cart, but never completed the purchase. During her...more
The second half of 2022 saw a wave of class action litigation under state wiretapping laws against website operators that use widely deployed online technologies, such as chatboxes and session replay software....more
Imagine you’re the CEO of a Midwest-based company operating an e-commerce website. You just attended the monthly sales and marketing presentation, and are pleased with the customer satisfaction and sales revenue numbers since...more
In a class action with potentially significant impact on data sharing disclosures that companies routinely provide in online privacy policies, the Third Circuit recently ruled that NaviStone, a third party marketing service,...more
Attention Lead Generators. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that use of certain technologies on a websites in order to track and record web session data before obtaining affirmative consent may be a...more
How it began: A woman used her smartphone to browse once for accessories on her favorite retailer’s website. How it’s going: The retailer and an online consumer tracking software company find themselves in the long slog of...more