SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - A federal magistrate judge has dismissed a proposed class action lawsuit over the sale of Twitter users' information but is allowing the plaintiff to file a new version.
Judge Sallie Kim, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, on Dec. 6 granted Twitter's motion to dismiss Lauren Price's lawsuit. The company argued Price knew what she was signing up for when she submitted her contact information.
Twitter provided ads by matching contact information that she provided with the same contact information that third-party advertisers were already using for marketing purposes. Twitter's privacy policy says contact information is used for security and advertising reasons.
This disclosure of personally identifiable information that did not lead to actual harm does not amount to standing to bring suit, Judge Kim wrote. She says Price and her lawyers need to explain their breach of contract argument better.
"A breach of contract without any concrete harm is akin to a statutory violation without any concrete harm," Kim wrote. "The fact California has authorized nominal damages under such circumstances does not alter the Article III standing analysis under Spokeo and TransUnion."
The lawsuit, filed May 31, came nine days after Twitter reached a settlement of allegations it peddled phone numbers and email addresses to advertisers with the Federal Trade Commission worth $150 million. Price is represented by Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group.
Though the phone numbers and email addresses were collected "under the guise" they would be used for security-related reasons, Twitter instead used them to allow advertisers to target specific groups of users, the suit says.
"Twitter's relationship with its users is governed by the Twitter Terms of Service and the Twitter Privacy Policy," the suit says. "The Twitter Privacy Policy repeatedly promises Plaintiff and Class members that Twitter respects their information and discloses such information only with users' consent."
Twitter, though, says it was a mistake that it voluntarily corrected, and the FTC waited more than two years to file its lawsuit. It says the new class action largely mirrors the FTC suit.
However, Twitter argued, Price can’t point to an actual injury that would give her standing to pursue the lawsuit.
“The only concrete result of that alleged conduct is that Plaintiff may have viewed more relevant advertisements (if she did not opt out of interest-based advertising), because she had also provided her contact information to a third-party advertiser for advertising purposes,” the motion says.
“Plaintiff does not even try to suggest that receiving an interest-based ad from Twitter is itself an injury. Indeed, Plaintiff fails to allege that any interest-based ad she received is traceable to information she provided Twitter only through a security feature, rather than through the account creation process or at another time.”