Alcohol Dependency Treatment Platform Monument Shared Personal Info with Third-Party Advertisers, Class Action Alleges

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Monument faces a proposed class action that alleges the online alcohol dependency treatment and counseling platform has illegally disclosed users’ personal and health information to third-party advertisers, including Meta, Google, Bing and Pinterest. 

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The 34-page complaint stresses that the thousands of consumers who have signed up on JoinMonument.com and JoinTempest.com >have entrusted the company with a litany of personal information, including not only their names, phone numbers and addresses but photographs, assessment or survey responses, appointment information and health details related to treating alcohol dependency. 

The suit says that although Monument has repeatedly promised to safeguard users’ private data and keep it anonymous, assuring to use it only to facilitate treatment, the company has instead installed pixels and other tracking code on JoinMonument.com and JoinTempest.com to track, collect and monetize consumers’ sensitive information. The case contends that Monument has wholly misrepresented the manner in which it handles users’ data and communications. 

“Defendant continually broke its promises to protect consumers’ Private Information, instead using it to target existing and new customers with advertising for its services,” the suit alleges, claiming Monument has also handed consumers’ data off to Meta, Google, Bing, Pinterest and other tech giants for their own “research, product development, and advertising purposes.” 

According to the complaint, Monument concluded in early February of this year after an internal review that certain private information was shared with Meta, Google, Bing, Pinterest and other third parties by way of tracking code “without the appropriate authorization, consent or agreements required by law.” The unauthorized disclosure, the defendant said, began in January 2020 for Monument members and November 2017 with respect to Tempest members, each of whom reportedly pays between $9.99 and $249 per month for Monument’s services, per the case. 

In its letter to Monument users, the company said that it has “stopped using tracking technologies offered by third parties” such as Meta (Facebook), Google, Bing and Pinterest, and that all Monument sites were disconnected from the tracking technologies at issue by February 23, 2023. 

Overall, Monument has failed to employ reasonable measures to protect users’ private information, properly train employees to protect this sensitive data and properly notify users as to the collection and disclosure of their information, the case charges. Further, Monument has also failed to limit how third parties could use the sensitive health and personal information the platform has handed over, despite purporting that its online community is “entirely anonymous” and that its platform is “100% secure and confidential,” the complaint alleges. 

“Thousands of Website visitors, including those like Plaintiff and Class Members who ultimately signed up for Defendant’s services, were presented with these repeated promises about the confidentiality of the Private Information they shared with Defendant. Despite these promises, however, Defendant used Private Information extensively for Defendant’s own profit, including by sharing and disclosing Private Information.” 

The filing contends that if the public does not trust that their medical information will be kept private, they may be less likely to seek treatment, which can cause additional problems down the road. In recognition of this, the case says, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996—HIPAA—prohibits the disclosure of a person’s personally identifiable health information to a third party without their express written consent. 

The lawsuit looks to cover all United States residents whose private information was disclosed to a third party without authorization or consent through one of Monument’s websites, including but not limited to JoinMonument.com and JoinTempest.com.

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