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District Court grants tech company’s motion to arbitrate smartphone data monitoring claims

Courts Privacy/Cyber Risk & Data Security Arbitration State Issues Class Action California

Courts

On November 9, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order granting, among other things, a global technology company defendant’s motion to compel individual arbitration in a privacy class action and dismissing the action without prejudice. As outlined in a May order issued by the court, which granted in part and denied in part defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s first amended complaint, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant failed to disclose it was (i) monitoring and collecting Android smartphone users’ sensitive personal data while users interacted with apps not owned by the defendant; or (ii) generally collecting “sensitive personal data to obtain an unfair economic advantage.” While the court dismissed the plaintiff’s California Invasion of Privacy Act claims, it allowed claims brought under the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act (which “prohibits ‘unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices’”) to proceed based on the reasoning that if the defendant had disclosed these material facts, the plaintiff would have acted differently.

The defendant moved to compel arbitration, claiming the plaintiff was using a smartphone that was bound by an arbitration provision. The plaintiff countered in both the complaint and first amended complaint, as well as in his initial disclosures, that the phone he originally purchased was never subject to an arbitration agreement. However, the court noted that account information later showed that the smartphone used by the plaintiff at the time he filed suit, as well as the smartphone he later switched to, both came with individual arbitration provisions and class waivers, subject to user opt out. The court stated that the plaintiff did not opt out of arbitration for either smartphone, and further denied the plaintiff’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint, dismissing the action without prejudice.