The Weather Channel Didn’t Disclose Data Mining, LA Lawsuit Says

The Weather Channel app improperly advertises itself as a weather service when its primary objective is to collect and sell user data, according to a recent lawsuit.

On Thursday, Los Angeles residents filed a lawsuit against TWC Product and Technology LLC, the company that runs The Weather Channel, claiming it violates California law by engaging in unfair competition.

City Attorney Michael Feuer says the company’s “core business” is selling app user data for a profit. 

According to The Weather Channel lawsuit, the company even considers itself “a location data company powered by weather.”

However, The Weather Channel app lawsuit states that customers are not made aware of this fact.

The Weather Channel lawsuit claims the app misleads customers into thinking that when they give the company access to location data, it uses it only to provide the customer with “personalized local weather data, alerts and forecasts.”

The Weather Channel data mining lawsuit alleges that the company only seeks consent from customers for geolocation tracking, and does not alert them that their information will be used for any purposes “other than personal weather data alerts and forecasts.”

However, the weather app lawsuit argues that the company has been known to monitor user data extensively.

Allegedly, the only time when the company alerts customers to its true use of data is in its “Privacy Policy” and “Privacy Settings” sections.

However, because The Weather Channel indicates to customers that the data is used in a very limited fashion, customers “have no reason to seek such information by combing through the app’s lengthy ‘Privacy Policy’ and ‘Privacy Settings.’”

The Weather Channel app lawsuit argues that these sections are intentionally “opaque” and most customers do not read these sections.

Feuer further claims that TWC knew its customers were unlikely to read the entirety of the Privacy Settings and Privacy Policy information presented, and used this fact to knowingly mislead customers into believing that their data would not be sold or used for anything beyond the most broadly advertised purposes.

The geolocation data tracking lawsuit says the company sells data to many companies who purchase it, and has been doing so for years.

“This geolocation information can then be analyzed to determine users’ daily habits, consumer preferences and even their identities — valuable data that serves as the basis of an approximately $21 billion location-targeted advertising industry,” according to TWC app lawsuit.

Allegedly, this information is used for a “variety of commercial and advertising purposes, including for target advertisements based on locations users frequent, and for hedge funds interested in analyzing consumer behavior.”

Feuer says that the company knowingly misrepresents its use of data to consumers, and that this act represents unfair competition.

The California residents are represented by Michael N. Feuer, City Attorney; James P. Clark, Chief Deputy City Attorney; Thomas H. Peters, Chief Assistant City Attorney; Michael J. Bostrom, Assistant City Attorney; and Adam R. Teitelbaum, Deputy City Attorney.

The Weather Channel Data Mining Lawsuit is The People of the State of California v. TWC Product and Technology LLC, Case No. unknown, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.