Venkat Balasubramani and Eric Goldman provide commentary on Pirozzi v. Apple, a case mentioned previously on this blog.
Kicking off with the ever-popular issue of Standing, Venkat writes:
The court dismisses on the basis of standing, but there were two interesting aspects to the standing discussion.
First, plaintiff cited to a bunch of somewhat persuasive marketing copy about how Apple had adequate restrictions in place regarding the collection of information by app developers. However, it was unclear as to how exactly plaintiff was induced to make a purchase in reliance of these alleged promises. The court finds that the pleadings are unduly vague about what plaintiff was induced to purchase (or download) and what statements induced the purchases or downloads.
Second, the court also notes that the pleading suffers from deficiencies regarding harm.
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Venkat also addresses a question I had raised in my blog post about the lack of clear demonstration of harm. He writes:
Second, the court also notes that the pleading suffers from deficiencies regarding harm. If information was improperly collected by app developers, so what? Citing to Hernandez v. Path and Krottner v. Starbucks, the court says that future risk of identity theft is insufficient to allege harm. This leaves economic harm, and here plaintiff’s allegations were again unduly vague. In a short sentence, the court notes that the “personal information as inherently valuable” argument will be unlikely to carry the day. Still, the court grants leave to amend.
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