Cabela’s Illegally Tracked Florida Consumers’ Website Interactions, Class Action Claims

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

Cabela’s faces a proposed class action that alleges the outdoor equipment retailer unlawfully tracks and records the electronic communications of Cabelas.com visitors through “session replay” software embedded on the website.

According to the 36-page lawsuit, Cabela’s fails to notify or obtain consent from consumers who visit its website before recording their interactions with the site, including mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, information entered into text fields, and pages and content viewed. The session replay code used by Cabela’s is more robust than a traditional website cookie or other analytics tool given that it records in real time each website visitors’ “entire visit” to Cabelas.com, the suit says.

The case claims Cabela’s has violated a Florida privacy law by intercepting website visitors’ online communications without consent and against their reasonable expectation of privacy.

Although session replay software, which allows a website operator to essentially record and play back a user’s entire session, is purportedly deployed to identify broken website features and improve user experience, Cabela’s uses the tool for a much broader purpose, the case claims. According to the suit, the extent of consumer data collected by Cabela’s “far exceeds” website visitors’ expectations and allows the retailer to assemble detailed profiles of each person who visits its site.

Per the case, Cabela’s uses the collected information “for its own financial gain” in that the data allows the retailer to learn consumers’ preferences and market its goods and services to them.

The case says consumers “reasonably believed” upon visiting Cabelas.com that they were interacting with the site privately and not being “watched and recorded,” especially since the defendant provided no warning that it was using session replay software to track their interactions with the site.

According to the case, Cabela’s use of Microsoft’s Clarity session replay code and similar technology is an illegal wiretap in violation of Florida law.

The suit looks to represent anyone in Florida who visited Cabelas.com and whose website communications were watched and captured in the state without their consent through the use of session replay code embedded in the defendant’s website.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.