Businesses Beware: California Trap & Trace Lawsuits Target Common Website Tools
Quick Hits Businesses are facing a wave of lawsuits advancing novel legal theories targeting the use of website visitor tracking tools such as cookies, pixels, and web beacons . The suits allege these tools unlawfully track website visitors’ online activity and collect their information, such as visitors’ geographic and device information, and share that information with third parties for marketing purposes. Companies may want to determine whether their websites use the tools in question. If so, they may want to examine the extent to which the statute and its exceptions may apply and whether the website can be tweaked to buttress available defenses. These lawsuits make generalized allegations that business websites use software or tools to collect various types of device and browsing information from website visitors and that businesses then share such information with other entities such as social media companies. The claims invoke an obscure provision of the Calif...