Bloomingdale’s Faces Class Action for Allegedly Tracking, Recording Online Shoppers
Jones v. Bloomingdales.com, LLC
Filed: October 14, 2022 ◆§ 4:22-cv-01095
A proposed class action alleges Bloomingdale's has secretly “wiretapped” the online communications of "millions of individuals perusing" its website.
Missouri
A proposed class action alleges Bloomingdale's has secretly “wiretapped” the online communications of "millions of individuals perusing" its website.
The 32-page case claims that the fashion retailer has run afoul of the Missouri Wiretap Act by tracking consumers' interactions with bloomingdales.com without their knowledge.
According to the complaint, Bloomingdale's deploys third-party providers, including FullStory, to embed snippets of code onto the company's website. Known as "session replay" code, the software can track various user interactions with the website, including mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, zooms, window resizes, keystrokes, text entries, and URLs of web pages visited, the filing contends.
The suit explains that unlike standard website analytics tools, session replay code records a playback video of a consumer's entire website visit. Since every action is captured, including information typed by the consumer while on the site, the website operator may be able to access private data such as the user’s name, email address, phone number, Social Security number or date of birth, the complaint alleges.
"Most alarming, Session Replay Code may capture data that the user did not even intentionally transmit to a website during a visit, and then make that data available to website owners when they access the session replay through the Session Replay Provider. For example, if a user writes information into a text form field, but then chooses not to click a ‘submit’ or ‘enter’ button on the website, the Session Replay Code may nevertheless cause the non-submitted text to be sent to the designated event-response-receiving server before the user deletes the text or leaves the page."
The lawsuit asserts that session replay providers can use captured information to create a profile of each user that links their identity with their web browsing history. According to the case, session replay providers are essentially “unknown eavesdroppers” as they “intercept” communications between the website’s visitors and the website owner.
Per the complaint, the information captured by Bloomingdale's helps power its targeted advertising capabilities. The suit says that according to Business News Daily, insight into the user experience allows companies such as Bloomingdale’s to improve marketing strategies and website design.
The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in Missouri whose website communications were captured through the use of session replay code embedded in Bloomingdales.com.
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