Divya Bhat & Matthew Verdin of Covington and Burling write:
Health-related websites are increasingly targeted with wiretapping suits if they use pixels or other third-party technologies to power their websites. A few months ago, a California court dismissed on multiple grounds one such suit challenging the use of website pixels by Clearblue, a company that offers home pregnancy and fertility test kits. Saedi v. SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics d/b/a Clearblue, 2025 WL 1141168 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 27, 2025).
The plaintiff, Roz Saedi, a California resident, alleged that she visited Clearblue’s website in September 2022 to research and purchase a fertility product. Shortly thereafter, Saedi claims that she saw advertisements on a personal social media account for the same product she had viewed on Clearblue’s website. According to the complaint, Clearblue used website pixels that “instantaneously and surreptitiously duplicated and sent” the plaintiff’s sensitive personal information to third parties for purposes of delivering targeted advertisements. The plaintiff asserted that this alleged conduct constituted wiretapping in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) and the federal Wiretap Act and constituted an intrusion upon seclusion under California common law.
The Court granted Clearblue’s motion to dismiss each of the plaintiff’s claims. While the Court gave the plaintiff leave to amend, it expressed that it “harbor[ed] serious doubt” that the plaintiff could cure the deficiencies in an amended complaint.
Read more at Inside Privacy.