Yelp Seeks Dismissal from Privacy Rights Class Action Lawsuit

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Consumers leading a set of consolidated class action lawsuits are asking the court to deny defendant Yelp Inc.’s motion for summary judgment.

The plaintiffs claim that a previous version of the Yelp app uploaded the address books from their Apple devices to Yelp’s servers without the users’ permission. The uploads supposedly occurred during use of the app’s “Find Friends” function, which compares contact information in the user’s address book to that of other app users.

Documents from the Yelp class action lawsuit say that prior to February 2012, the app merely notified the user that it would “[f]ind friends on Yelp using your Contacts.”

Then for roughly two weeks, say plaintiffs, the app told the user it would “need to look at your contacts to find friends.” In neither iteration of the notice did the app specifically tell the user it would upload their address book information, the plaintiffs claim.

The new disclosure language released in March 2012, reportedly on orders from Apple, finally informed users that “[t]o find friends, we’ll need to upload your contacts to Yelp.”

Yelp brought the current motion for summary judgment in April 2016. The company argues that everything in its “Find Friends” feature falls within the user’s expressly given consent. The app accesses the user’s contacts solely to look for the email addresses of other Yelp users, the company claims. Yelp argues this express consent by the user is fatal to an invasion of privacy claim.

The plaintiffs argue that the consent Yelp tries to invoke did not specifically reference the copying of address book data to Yelp’s servers, and therefore can’t be considered express. Yelp is trying to argue that consent to copy the data was implied in whatever language the user actually assented to, the plaintiffs say. They counter that if Yelp wanted to upload that data, it should have sought specific user permission to do so.

“Plaintiffs should not be required to conduct computer engineering research or assume that Yelp is flouting Apple’s announced privacy protections to decipher any allegedly-necessary implications flowing from Yelp’s limited disclosures,” the response states.

The Yelp class action lawsuit is part of a consolidation of several similar actions that originated with one complaint in March 2012, alleging that developers of the Path smartphone app were taking advantage of certain features of Apple’s iOS operating system to siphon off users’ data without their permission.

Defendant Twitter Inc. has also moved for dismissal, arguing that its app informed users about its access to their address books and prompted them for consent. Twitter argues that the conduct at issue is “a far cry” from the kind of conduct courts have found actionable in similar cases.

The plaintiffs are represented by Frank Busch, James M. Wagstaffe, Michael Von Loewenfeldt and Daniel J. Veroff of Kerr & Wagstaffe LLP; David M. Given, Nicholas A. Carlin, and Connor H. Kennedy of Phillips, Erlewine, Given & Carlin LLP; and Carl F. Schwenker of the Law Offices of Carl F. Schwenker.

The Yelp Privacy Rights Class Action Lawsuit is Marc Opperman, et al. v. Path Inc., et al., Case No. 3:13-cv-00453, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On July 15, 2016, a California federal judge partially certified a class action lawsuit filed by Path users who claim Apple Inc. let the app access their contacts on their smartphones.

UPDATE 2: On Aug. 23, 2016, Yelp argued that users consent to let them use their contacts lists as well as allow Yelp to upload that data.

UPDATE 3: On Sept. 9, 2016, Yelp will continue to face a privacy rights class action lawsuit alleging it made unauthorized use of users’ address book data, following a federal judge’s denial of the company’s motion for summary judgment.

UPDATE 4: On April 3, 2017, several app companies, including Twitter, Yelp, and Instagram, asked a federal judge to sign off on a $5.3 million preliminary settlement deal that would resolve a mobile app privacy class action lawsuit.

UPDATE 5: The Twitter, Instagram, Yelp App Privacy Class Action Settlement is now open. Click here to file a claim. 

UPDATE 6: On June 6, 2018, Top Class Actions viewers started receivingchecks in the mailworth as much as $94.55 from a class action settlement over alleged privacy violations by developers of certain apps available on the iOS mobile app. Congratulations to everyone who filed a claim and got PAID!