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Shortly before Privacy Day, California Attorney General (Cal AG) Rob Bonta announced a California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) enforcement sweep that targeted mobile applications.

The sweep focused on popular apps in the retail, travel, and food service industries, which allegedly failed to comply with consumer opt-out requests. The sweep also included businesses that failed to comply with requests submitted by consumers’ authorized agents, including those sent by Permission Slip, a mobile app that allows consumers to send opt-out and deletion requests on the consumer’s behalf.
Continue Reading California Attorney General Announces Enforcement Sweep of Mobile Applications

As privacy-related litigation continues to heat up, Judge Beth Freeman (ND Cal.) recently laid out in In re Google Assistant Privacy Litigation (Case No. 19-cv-04286)[1] a potential roadmap for surviving or winning a motion to dismiss on privacy-related causes of action.

The consolidated lawsuit against Google alleges violations on twelve counts, all relating to the Google Assistant product – a voice-activated technology used in mobile and home devices that listens for “hotwords” in order to carry out user commands. This case is an important one to watch and should be broadly instructive as many companies, big and small, are and have been hard at work on voice-activated technologies (compare, for instance, to Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and countless speech recognition start-ups around the world). Huge numbers of households and individuals currently have these devices in their homes and/or on their person at all times.
Continue Reading A Roadmap to Litigating Privacy Claims? A Look at a Recent Order From the Google Assistant Privacy Litigation

As we are all well aware by now, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) (Cal. Civ. Code Sections 1798.100 et seq.) went into effect on Jan. 1. Through its amendments and regulations (the latter of which have yet to be finalized as of this article’s publication), one aspect of the act has stayed largely consistent: the CCPA grants a private right of action only in limited situations. While the California Attorney General has the ability to impose fines for any CCPA violation, the private right of action is specifically limited (over significant debate and a proposed amendment that failed to pass) to data breach. Moreover, in creating that private right of action, the act specifically notes that violations “shall not be interpreted to serve as the basis for a private right of action under any other law.”

Does that mean there will not be significant litigation concerning the CCPA outside of the data breach realm? The answer is clearly a resounding “no.” Indeed, we have already seen multiple lawsuits filed taking direct aim at the CCPA’s claimed limitations on private enforcement. In those cases, in direct contravention of the stated limitation on private rights of action, plaintiffs have claimed (among other things) that the failure to provide proper notice required by the CCPA predicates a violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law (Cal Civ. Code. Section 17200) (the UCL). See, e.g., Burke v. Clearview AI, Case No. 3:20-cv-00370 (S.D. Cal., filed Feb. 27, 2020); Sheth v. Ring, Case No. 2:20-cv-01538 (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 18, 2020). Whether such claims will fail as expressly barred by the act remains to be seen.
Continue Reading Private Rights of Action and the CCPA—Unlimited Limitation?

As large portions of society become subject to coronavirus-related quarantines, increasing numbers of people have turned to web-based communications platforms for classes, meetings, events, and socialization. One such platform, Zoom, has become, in some estimations, the most important app in the business world, and the single most downloaded mobile app in all of India.

With such rapid expansion in its user base, there was bound to be increased focus on the company. Over the last few weeks, Zoom has faced questions related to the legality of its privacy and information-gathering practices. In fact, in addition to addressing concerns on social media and national television programs, Zoom must also now defend itself in a new class action lawsuit involving the newly enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which we analyze below.
Continue Reading New CCPA Lawsuit Against Zoom: Issues to Watch