Legal Alert | Wiretap Laws in the United States
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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
It has now become commonplace for Plaintiffs’ attorneys to bring claims alleging that routine marketing techniques, including the deployment of behavioral advertising cookies and pixels, constitute wiretaps in violation of...more
Pretrial detention imposes severe burdens on a defendant's ability to prepare for trial. One such burden is that the prosecution may receive, without a warrant, recordings of the defendant's electronic communications,...more
Readers of this blog are familiar with the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”), and the systematic transformation of CIPA wiretapping cases since their inception. Applying CIPA, a Washington State federal court...more
Businesses operating public facing websites that employ data analytics software to track users’ website interactions must be aware of a novel use of the California Information Privacy Act (“CIPA”) that has taken the...more
The proliferation of class action lawsuit and arbitration claim filings under the Federal Wiretap Act and various state wiretap statutes has recently grown beyond California, as other states are now beginning to see more...more
Plaintiffs look to the past to take action against modern web tracking - As states rapidly enact new consumer privacy legislation, businesses have been working tirelessly to comply with extensive new data protection...more
This is the fourth installment in our monthly data privacy litigation reports to provide updates on how courts in the United States have handled emerging data privacy tends in the past month. In this post we look at...more
2022 has seen a new wave of class action lawsuits targeting companies that use technology to track consumers’ interfaces on their websites. These lawsuits generally allege that the use of technologies such as session replay...more
Takeaway: State wiretap acts have been around for a long time, and they can provide greater protection to victims of intercepted communications than the Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2510. These statutes generally...more
Retailers, financial services firms, and many other companies utilize third party session replay software to maintain a record of interactions with visitors to their websites for a variety of useful purposes, including to...more
The latest wrinkle in the ever-changing world of data privacy litigation is the recent surge in state wiretap claims. What began as a trickle over the summer of 2020 has grown into a clear wave as plaintiffs have filed dozens...more
Last week, the Sixth Circuit expanded potential liability for violations of the Federal Wiretap Act for manufacturers of devices that can be used for wiretapping, like monitoring software, in reversing the dismissal of a...more
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has delved into the “App Store,” addressing for the first time the use of smartphones and their applications in the context of illegal wiretapping. Pennsylvania’s Wiretap Act forbids the...more
Careful about protecting the safety of his customers, A.R. Remington, owner of Fishinabarrel Gun Range, installed surveillance cameras to blanket his premises, except the restrooms. Last week while target practicing with his...more
In the latest development in the Google Street View case, the Ninth Circuit once again upheld the lower court’s decision that Google’s collection of unencrypted Wi-Fi does not fit within an exception to the Wiretap Act that...more