The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth District recently reversed a District Court decision that forced Verizon customers into an arbitration against a different company, Turn, Inc.
The Court found that the claims did not arise out of the Verizon contract which contained an arbitration clause.
Instead, the consumers were asserting privacy claims against a third party marketing firm that allegedly tracked users with “supercookies.” Turn, Inc. had allegedly teamed with Verizon to use the telecom company’s device specific unique identifier header to allow online advertisers to deliver unique ads to subscribers based on their mobile data usage. The plaintiffs assert that Turn violated the users privacy because the supercookies secretly monitor their behavior and users cannot detect, delete, or block the supercookies.
Turn, Inc. previously reached an agreement to resolve claims brought by the Federal Trade Commission by overhauling its privacy practices.
The case is Anthony Henson et al. v. U.S. District Court, case number 16-71818 (9th Cir. September 5, 2017).