June Williams reports:
Unhappy customers say in a federal class action that an AccuWeather application that comes installed on EVO smartphones tracks users’ location “to within a few feet,” and transmits the unencrypted data over the Internet so it can be used to “display behaviorally targeted advertising to those users” – and there’s no way to disable the app.
Lead plaintiffs Chad Goodman and Jon Olson sued HTC America, which makes the Android-based EVO 3D and 4G smartphones, and AccuWeather.
They say the app, which was installed “ostensibly to make weather information conveniently available,” tracks “unnecessarily precise” data for a weather forecast.
“In actuality, defendants have used and continue to use the application to track plaintiffs’ exact geographic location for defendants’ own purposes unrelated to weather information,” according to the complaint.
Read more about the complaint on Courthouse News.
Prior media coverage of the lawsuit can be found on MediaPost.