Judge Certifies comScore Privacy Class Action Lawsuit

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Analytics company comScore Inc. suffered a major blow in court this week when an Illinois federal judge ruled it must face a 2011 privacy class action lawsuit accusing the company of collecting and selling a “terrifying” amount of data from consumers, including Social Security numbers, credit card numbers and passwords.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs estimates nearly 1 million people could be covered by the comScore class action lawsuit, making it “the largest privacy case to ever go to trial in terms of class size and potential damages.”

comScore is one of the largest Internet tracking companies in the world. It uses free software to monitor and measure what people do online and sells it to over 2,000 companies that use the data for their online marketing and advertising efforts.

Plaintiffs Mike Harris and Jeff Dunstan allege in the class action lawsuit, filed in August 2011, that they installed comScore’s software after downloading a free product offered by one of comScore’s “bundlers,” such as a free screensaver or game.

The class action lawsuit says comScore uses these bundlers to distribute a program called OSSProxy, which, if installed on a computer, constantly collects data about the activity on the computer and sends it back to comScore’s servers. Users are given the choice to “Accept” or “Decline” the Privacy Statement and User License Agreement, but are not informed about the “extensive and highly intrusive amount of data collected by comScore,” the class action lawsuit says.

Once installed, the OSSProxy software scans all accessible files on a user’s computer, as well as files from other users on the same network, and collects a wide range of data. The plaintiffs argue the data collected goes beyond the scope of the consumer’s consent because it includes highly personal information such as passwords, Social Security numbers, bank details, retail transactions, and more. They also say comScore’s terms don’t inform users that the software can modify their security settings and slow down their computer and Internet access, causing their computers to crash.

comScore maintains that it scrubs the data it collects to remove all personal information before selling it, but the class action lawsuit says the software is designed to merely “fuzzify” or “obscure” confidential information collected, rather than making “commercially viable efforts to automatically filter that information” as promised in the User License Agreement.

U.S. District Judge James Holderman on Tuesday certified a class of all individuals since 2005 who downloaded and installed comScore’s tracking software onto their computers from a third party. Judge Holderman also certified a subclass of people who weren’t provided a link to comScore’s end user license agreement before downloading the software.

The class action lawsuit is seeking injunctive relief and damages, including statutory damages of $1,000 per violation under the Stored Communications Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Judge Holderman ruled Class Members can pursue claims under the SCA and ECPA as well as for violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He denied, however, their unjust enrichment claims.

A copy of the certification order can be read here.

The comScore Privacy Class Action Lawsuit case is Mike Harris, et al. v. comScore, Inc., Case No. 11-cv-5807, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

UPDATE 1:  On May 30, 2014, comScore Inc. reached a $14 million class action settlement to resolve the allegations raised in this case. Class Members are expected to receive approximately $200 each.

UPDATE 2: Instructions on how to file a claim for the comScore class action settlement are now available! Visit our open settlement page or www.DataCollectionSettlement.net for more information.

UPDATE 3: Viewers are reporting they are receiving checks in the mail from the comScore class action settlement. Congratulations to everyone who filed valid claims and got PAID!