Class Action Says ZoomInfo Lacked Consent to Intercept Email Info Through Community Edition Program [UPDATE]

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A proposed class action alleges ZoomInfo has illegally shared Community Edition Program subscribers’ and their contacts’ personal information and communications with third parties over more than a decade. 

The 55-page lawsuit says that ZoomInfo’s Community Edition Program allows a user to access the company’s proprietary business intelligence database and analytical tools free of charge. In order to obtain access to ZoomInfo’s free Community Edition Program, the suit relays, a user must agree to give the company permission to access their incoming and outgoing emails, from which ZoomInfo claims to extract only certain “business information,” such as contacts and company names, for inclusion in its database. 

The complaint alleges that although ZoomInfo “expressly assures” users that it respects their privacy, namely by guaranteeing that it collects only business data from address books, headers and signatures, the company “intercepts, views, reads, and accesses” users’ email communications and subsequently “discloses, disseminates, sells, and otherwise uses” the personal data therein without a person’s knowledge or consent. 

According to the case, ZoomInfo fails to inform individuals, including unsuspecting non-subscribers, that it accesses and views the entirety of their incoming and outgoing communications “in its quest for relevant data to extract and include in its database.” Additionally, the suit alleges the defendant fails to meaningfully disclose that, contrary to its representations, it uses “hundreds of human researchers and analysts to cleanse, organize, and verify” the data the company scrapes from subscribers’ and non-subscribers’ emails. This information, the complaint says, is sold to third parties that include marketers, recruiters and advertisers. 

“Each such interception and disclosure constitutes an egregious breach of social privacy norms and is a violation of federal and state law,” the lawsuit scathes, alleging ZoomInfo is aware that it lacks consent to do what it wants with the contents of consumers’ electronic communications. 

The plaintiff, a Connecticut resident who is not subscribed to ZoomInfo’s Community Edition Program, says in the complaint that she was surprised to learn that her full name, title, years of experience, and other employment data, including colleagues’ names, were included in the defendant’s database. Further, ZoomInfo also advertises that the plaintiff’s contact information is available to subscribers, the case says. 

The lawsuit looks to represent all residents of the United States and its territories who subscribed to ZoomInfo’s Community Edition Program and whose email correspondence was viewed, read, processed, captured and/or shared by ZoomInfo with third parties without their consent during the applicable statute of limitations period. 

The case also looks to cover all individuals residing in the United States or its territories who did not subscribe to ZoomInfo’s Community Edition and whose emails were viewed, read, processed, captured and/or shared by ZoomInfo with third parties as a result of their corresponding with any Community Edition subscriber during the applicable statute of limitations period.

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