Plaintiff Lance Webb voluntarily dismissed without prejudice all claims against sunglasses maker Blue Otter Wednesday, said a notice (docket 1:23-cv-01187) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. The February class action alleged Blue Otter collects without consumers’ consent detailed and sensitive biometric identifiers in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (see 2302280031). Each party will bear their own fees and costs, said the order.

JetBlue “improperly attempts to interject irrelevant documents beyond the pleadings” in support of its motion to dismiss a privacy complaint, said plaintiff Anne Lightoller Tuesday in a memorandum (docket 3:23-cv-00361) opposing the airline’s request for judicial notice (RJN) in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. Lightoller’s February complaint (see 2302270025) alleges JetBlue used technology from FullStory to record her mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes on websites she visited, in violation of California's Invasion of Privacy Act. The “irrelevant documents” produced by JetBlue included documents “purporting to be screen-shots” from the JetBlue website, including a cookie banner and privacy policy, along with complaints filed in other litigation pertaining to violation of privacy rights by other websites using session replay technologies, Lightoller said. The plaintiff claimed JetBlue’s documents were submitted to “bolster a fact-intensive implied consent assertion” and to “discredit the allegations” in her complaint based on the allegations of unrelated complaints asserting similar privacy rights issues. Lightoller’s class action against JetBlue was one of some 10 “cookie-cutter” suits filed by law firm Hausfeld, said JetBlue’s April motion to dismiss (see 2304270033). Documents in JetBlue’s RJN included Lightoller’s similar privacy complaint against The Cheesecake Factory in February for alleged violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, along with other privacy complaints. Lightoller voluntarily dismissed that complaint (docket 3:23-cv-00272) without prejudice last week. The Cheesecake Factory hadn’t served an answer or motion for summary judgment in the action, which had a May 22 deadline for responding to her Feb. 10 class action.

Meta “takes no position” on whether plaintiff Jane Doe’s privacy action against defendant telehealth provider Hey Favor should be stayed in light of its April 18 Chapter 11 filing (see 2304280021) or whether she should be permitted to file a motion to sever her claims against Hey Favor, Meta wrote U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco in a letter Friday (docket 3:23-cv-00059). She alleges Hey Favor knowingly and intentionally sent personally identifiable information about her medical history to Meta, TikTok and other social media platforms. Meta thinks “the most efficient path forward” is for the court to address Meta’s pending motion to sever, it told the judge. Jane Doe’s claims against Meta “are entirely encompassed by the claims” against Meta in the consolidated Meta Pixel healthcare litigation, it said. “Severing the claims against Meta here,” and consolidating them with the healthcare action, “will conserve party resources, promote judicial economy, and avoid conflicting results,” it said. “Severance and consolidation will cause no prejudice to the plaintiff here, as her claims will be promptly resolved as part of the overarching claims” in the healthcare action, it said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila ordered Friday Alvarez v. Apple Inc. to be consolidated with the Apple Data Privacy Litigation class action (docket 5:22-cv-07069) and transferred to U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose. Plaintiff Katie Alvarez sued (docket 1:23-cv-01752 ) Apple in February in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan, claiming Apple’s alleged privacy violations, including its gathering of biometric information, are a breach of implied contract, violation of federal and state criminal computer trespass statutes and a potential violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Davila ordered consolidation of 15 data privacy actions against Apple in March (see 2303270040), saying when a pleading isn’t intended to apply to all actions it will be docketed on the master docket with a notation in the text as to the case numbers to which it pertains. All the class actions allege Apple illegally records and collects data on consumers’ mobile app activity even when the tracking feature is disabled through a device’s privacy settings.

AT&T seeks to compel plaintiff Timothy Trimble's privacy claims to arbitration after he and the company were unable to resolve their impasse following good-faith discussions toward a voluntary settlement (see 2305110029), said AT&T's motion Friday (docket 5:23-cv-00038) in U.S. District Court for Western North Carolina in Statesville. AT&T seeks to compel arbitration under Section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act and stay the case pending the outcome of that arbitration in accordance under Section 3 of the statute, said the filing. Trimble’s March 16 class action alleges AT&T “completely and utterly failed” to protect sensitive consumer data when it suffered a “massive data breach” in January, compromising the personal information of about 9 million U.S. customers.

Plaintiff Anne Lightoller voluntarily dismissed without prejudice her California Invasion of Privacy Act wiretapping claims against the Cheesecake Factory, said her notice Wednesday (docket 3:23-cv-00272) in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. The Cheesecake Factory hasn’t served an answer or motion for summary judgment in this action, said Lightoller’s notice. May 22 was its deadline for responding to her Feb. 10 class action. Her complaint alleged the Cheesecake Factory hires third-party vendors such as Microsoft to embed JavaScript session replay code on its website for wiretapping purposes (see 2302150008). The referenced code deploys on each website visitor's internet browser for the purpose of “intercepting and recording” the visitor’s electronic communications on the website, including mouse movements, clicks, search information, URLs and other real-time communications.

Plaintiff Jane Doe opposes Meta’s administrative motion asking the court to rule on its pending motion to sever (see 2305090042), said her Tuesday response (docket 3:23-cv-00059) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Meta requested a ruling on its pending motion to sever claims in the Meta pixel case after co-defendant Hey Favor’s April 18 bankruptcy filing (see 2304280021) and an automatic stay of proceedings. The case is one of several involving healthcare providers’ use of the Meta Pixel tracking tool on their websites for targeted advertising. “Meta omits that since this Motion was fully briefed it has taken inconsistent positions on several significant issues” in Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation (docket 3:22-cv-03580), said Doe. Meta’s “opportunistically limited view” of the hospital actions in Healthcare Litigation “directly contradicts its previous argument that the claims against it in this action must be severed because they are completely ‘duplicative of -- and encompassed within – the claims asserted in the [Hospital Actions,]” it said.

Plaintiff Kayla Mandeng and defendant Spirit Airlines jointly move for an order transferring Mandeng’s wiretapping class action to the Western District of Pennsylvania, where it can be consolidated with two earlier-filed “factually similar” cases with “nearly identical claims,” said their joint motion Monday (docket 3:23-cv-00233) in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. The two cases are Smidga v. Spirit Airlines (docket 2:22-cv-01578), filed Nov. 7 in the Western District of Pennsylvania, and Curd v. Spirit Airlines (docket 1:22-cv-03174), filed Dec. 8 in the District of Maryland. Pretrial consolidation with the two factually similar cases “will serve the interests of justice and convenience of the parties because the parties may coordinate on briefing and discovery issues that are likely to be the same across all three cases and avoid potentially conflicting rulings and duplicative discovery,” said the motion. Mandeng’s complaint, filed Feb. 7, alleges Spirit hires third-party vendors, such as FullStory, to embed snippets of JavaScript computer code, called “session replay code,” in its website visitors' internet browsers (see 2302080044). The code then intercepts and records the visitors' activity, right down to their mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes and URLs of web pages they visit, it said. The vendors use the captured website communications to create a video replay of users' behavior on the website and provide it to Spirit for analysis, said Mandeng's complaint.

JPJ Electronics violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) when it didn’t disclose that a website chat was being monitored, intercepted or recorded, alleged plaintiff Sylvia Garcia in a class action (docket 2:23-cv-3463) removed Friday from Superior Court of Los Angeles County to U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. Garcia, a California resident, had a brief conversation with a chat agent on www.dashcam.co while on the company’s website without being told it was monitored, intercepted or recorded, alleged the complaint. The Texas-based company sells surveillance devices to trucking fleets, the complaint said. The dashcam.co domain name was listed as available for sale Monday. Garcia alleged JPJ “enables and allows” third parties, including Smartsupp and Shopify, to eavesdrop on chats to intercept and store chat communications transcripts without informing website visitors, alleged the complaint. Meta integrates its software with the third-party software and generates revenue by selling advertising space through its platforms’ ability to identify users’ interests. Facebook and WhatsApp then “bombard the unsuspecting website visitors with targeted advertising” based on the user’s website visits and interactions, said the complaint. The defendant, the third-party software company and Meta profit from “secretly exploiting” private chat data through targeted social media, the complaint said. Defendant’s chat communications from its website are transmitted to website visitors by cell phone or landline, as defined by CIPA, it said. Plaintiff seeks an injunction against JPJ for alleged CIPA violations, statutory damages and attorneys’ fees and costs.

The bankruptcy statute is clear that the automatic stay triggered for defendant telehealth provider Hey Favor when it filed for Chapter 11 on April 18 (see 2304280021) doesn’t apply to the other defendants that aren’t also seeking bankruptcy protection, counsel for plaintiff Jane Doe wrote U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco in a letter Friday (docket 3:23-cv-00059). There are four defendants in Doe’s privacy action that haven’t declared bankruptcy, including Meta, TikTok, ByteDance and FullStory, said the letter: “Thus, while further proceedings against Hey Favor may have been automatically stayed, the action should proceed against these entities.” Plaintiff Doe seeks clarification that the action may continue against those other defendants, and she requests leave to file a motion to sever the claims against Hey Favor so the rest of the case may proceed, said the letter. She alleges Hey Favor knowingly and intentionally sent personally identifiable information about her medical history to Meta, TikTok and other social media platforms.