The Cheesecake Factory Unlawfully Tracks Website Users via Spyware, Class Action Alleges

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims The Cheesecake Factory has unlawfully tracked and recorded the online communications of website visitors without consent.

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The 24-page lawsuit alleges that the defendant has embedded “session replay” code into its website via third-party vendors such as Microsoft. This code allows the company to capture the interactions of visitors to TheCheesecakeFactory.com in real time and create full replays of individual browsing sessions, the filing says.

Unlike other website analytics tools, the web-tracking software used by The Cheesecake Factory can intercept and record a user’s every movement on a web page, including interactions that expose private information, the suit explains.

“[U]nbeknownst to the millions of individuals perusing [The Cheesecake Factory’s] menu and products online,” the defendant “intentionally” taps website visitors’ electronic communications as if it were “looking over [their] shoulder,” the case says.

The spyware technology at issue enables the restaurant to monitor and analyze all user interactions with its site, including keystrokes, mouse movements, clicks, the URLs of subpages visited, and any information entered onto a page, the complaint relays.

The “session replay” codes allegedly used by The Cheesecake Factory, such as Microsoft’s Clarity, are ostensibly intended to monitor how the webpages themselves function, the filing states. However, as the lawsuit tells it, the immense amount of data intercepted from users suggests that the company’s goal “goes well beyond normal website analytics.”

The plaintiff, a California resident, has accessed TheCheesecakeFactory.com in the past and, as a result, had her electronic communications captured without consent, the suit claims. Like other users, the plaintiff reasonably assumed that her visit to the site would be private, the case says.

Beyond legal considerations or privacy issues, however, web-tracking software like the kind purportedly employed by the defendant also puts website visitors’ personal data at risk of exposure to unwanted third parties, the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone residing in California whose website communications were intercepted through the use of web-tracking codes embedded in TheCheesecakeFactory.com.

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