SEATTLE (Legal Newsline) -- A couple have filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon.
Mary and Matthew Street filed a federal complaint on July 8 in the Western District of Washington against Amazon for violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act and unjust enrichment.
According to the complaint, Amazon manufactured, marketed, and sold the Echo and Ring devices. Embedded within Sidewalk Devices is a technology that enables those Sidewalk Devices to connect to other Echo and Ring devices nearby through their Bluetooth connections, creating a new, shared network.
Together, these connections create a stronger “mesh” network with long range connectivity that would otherwise be expensive to create. Amazon bypasses the expense of creating such an expensive network, however, by having Sidewalk tap into Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ private Internet connections, using portions of their Internet bandwidth to maintain connections between the Sidewalk Devices, the suit says.
Amazon activated Sidewalk on or about June 8, 2021, automatically connecting its Sidewalk Devices by default without first seeking consumers’ consent to share their Internet bandwidth, the suit claims. The Streets allege that due to Amazon’s unfair, deceptive, and/or fraudulent business practices, owners of Sidewalk Devices have suffered an ascertainable loss and injury in fact and are at imminent risk of future harm, including increased risk to the security of their personal data; and otherwise have been harmed by Amazon’s conduct.
The Street's seek declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory, special and consequential damages, civil penalties, pre and post judgment interest, attorney's fees, witness fees, cost of suit, punitive and exemplary damages. The Street's are represented by Jason T. Dennet and Rebecca L. Solomon.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle case number 2:21-cv-00912