Interclick Faces Flash Cookie Class Action

Interclick is the latest ad network facing a class action lawsuit over the now-infamous practice of “history sniffing” – using flash cookies and hidden code to secretly monitor the activity of online users and see what websites they’ve visited.

The Interclick class action lawsuit accuses the ad-serving company of tracking Web surfers’ activities by placing flash cookies and hidden code in online ads that invades their privacy and steals their personal information.

The class action charges Interclick with purposefully doing this in order to circumvent measures online users take to prevent just such monitoring. The lawsuit says that instead of just depositing “browser cookies,” which some users know they can delete or block, Interclick places “flash cookies” on users’ computers, which are stored and hidden in Adobe Flash data files as local shared objects (LSOs). The class action claims that even if a user deletes an Interclick browser cookie, the flash cookies will “re-spawn” it, without the user’s knowledge.

The lead plaintiff in the Interclick class action lawsuit has retained the same lawyer who just helped collect a $2.4 million class action settlement from Quantcast and Clearspring for their use of flash cookies. (Read about the Quantcast & Clearspring Flash Cookie Settlement here.)

Interclick claims it no longer uses hidden flash cookies for its ad targeting, but many people still have Interclick’s LSOs on their computers, which “continue to reside and remain available to Interclick,” says the lawsuit.

The Interclick flash cookie class action lawsuit is seeking restitution and damages for violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, deceptive practices, trespass, breach of contract and unjust enrichment. It is also seeking an injunction barring Interclick from engaging in similar actions in the future.