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Website Tracking Privacy Lawsuits
Coverage from Fisher Phillips, Consentmo, and others
Website-tracking privacy lawsuits ask whether businesses’ cookies, pixels, and analytics tools improperly collect or share visitors’ information, including sensitive health-related activity.
Courts examine the clarity and effectiveness of cookie banners, privacy notices, and opt-outs, as well as whether alleged tracking amounts to interception or captures the contents of a communication under laws such as California’s CIPA and the federal Wiretap Act. Decisions also turn on what data was transmitted and whether claims meet requirements for standing, pleading, and class treatment. Together, these rulings shape how privacy statutes apply to online tracking practices.
If you read one thing
This September roundup offers a broad view of mixed outcomes across notice, tracking evidence, and procedural questions.
Latest development
This story-driving ruling clarifies the distinction between passive browsing data and intercepted contents while addressing allegedly deceptive opt-outs.
The evidence
The Tripadvisor decision shows how conspicuous clickwrap assent and choice-of-law terms can support a defendant’s defense.
The evidence
This healthcare case adds a distinct procedural example, reviving certification opportunities without deciding whether a privacy violation occurred.
Notice and consent turn on what users are actually told
Courts assess whether notices clearly disclose third-party sharing and whether user choices are meaningful and honored. A policy link may not cure an inadequate banner, while clear clickwrap notice and assent can support a defense.
Specific facts about data and interception are pivotal
Claims often fail when plaintiffs do not specify what data a third party received or read, and when transmission or interception occurred. Passive browsing records alone may not establish interception of communication contents, while concrete allegations about sensitive information or tracking after an opt-out can support claims.
Outcomes vary by statute, jurisdiction, and procedural stage
Tracking claims have produced both dismissals and rulings allowing claims or class-certification issues to proceed, with results varying across laws and jurisdictions. Many decisions address pleading or certification rather than deciding whether a privacy violation occurred, and no nationwide rule requires sites to block tracking tools.
21 days
time allowed to amend
“Adobe also obtained a stay of discovery because the scope of the amended complaint is unknown. Plaintiffs have 21 days to amend.”
2024
year of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision in Good v. Uber Technologies, Inc.
“He also held that the clickwrap agreement gave D’Antonio reasonable notice of the terms and that his decision to proceed constituted a reasonable manifestation of assent under the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s 2024 decision in Good v. Uber Technologies, Inc.”
Four rulings
rulings favoring defendants
“Courts issued six rulings in September in cases alleging that businesses allowed third parties to track website visitors unlawfully. Four favored defendants and two favored plaintiffs.”
six rulings
website-tracking rulings issued in September
“Courts issued six rulings in September in cases alleging that businesses allowed third parties to track website visitors unlawfully. Four favored defendants and two favored plaintiffs.”
all nine claims
claims dismissed
“A federal court in California dismissed all nine claims in a privacy class action against Adobe, ruling that plaintiffs cannot establish lack of consent by merely asserting they never gave it.”
A California court separates passive browsing data from intercepted communication contents
A Northern District of California ruling dismissed CIPA wiretap and pen-register claims based on passive browsing data, holding that the alleged URLs and related activity were not communication contents. At the same time, alleged misleading cookie opt-outs supported standing and tolling arguments, underscoring that the effect of tracking claims still depends on the specific conduct alleged.
Previously
U.S. courts are weighing privacy lawsuits over cookies, tracking pixels, analytics tools, and the sharing of browsing or health-related information with third parties. Decisions turn on the details of user notices and opt-outs, the evidence plaintiffs provide about what data was intercepted, and whether consent or contractual terms were clear. The mixed outcomes show that both website practices and case-specific factual allegations can shape whether claims proceed.
The update frames recent outcomes as more defendant-favorable, emphasizing that tracking claims often fail without specific allegations about captured data, timing, and intercepted communications. The overall picture remains mixed, rather than marking a new legal outcome or change in practice.