Class Action Lawsuit Says edX App Unlawfully Shares User Data with Google, Others

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims the companies behind the app edX have illegally shared users’ personal data with multiple third parties without consent.

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The 41-page privacy lawsuit explains that edX—a mobile app operated by defendants 2U, Inc. and edX, LLC—offers pre-recorded educational videos and online courses from numerous high-profile Massachusetts universities. The suit alleges that the app’s operators intentionally share users’ personal information and video-viewing behavior with third parties each time they use the platform, in violation of a federal law that bars a “video tape service provider” from disclosing consumer information without authorization.

According to the case, the companies capture and disclose user information via multiple third-party application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs). Per the complaint, the third parties that intercept the recorded information—namely, Google and software companies Braze and Twilio—then use the data for targeted marketing purposes.

When a consumer uses the app, the APIs and SDKs transmit the viewer’s email address, username and user ID, along with the title and URL of any videos they view, the filing claims. Importantly, the lawsuit argues that this combination of data allows “even an ordinary person” to pinpoint a user’s identity and link it to their video-viewing history.

As the suit tells it, it is “abundantly clear” that the app operators deliberately share user information with third parties.

According to the case, “common sense dictates that sophisticated media producers and distributors like [the defendants] who include several APIs in their app focused on marketing, advertising, and analytics are fully aware of the scope of the data the [sic] Braze, Google, and Twilio are collecting, and are choosing to intentionally provide that data to Braze, Google, and Twilio.”

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States who viewed a pre-recorded video on the edX app and had their personal information transmitted to a third party.

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