Disney, Viacom Must Face Kids Data Scrape Class Action

UPDATE: November 2020, Disney, Viacom, and other mobile app providers agreed to settle the child privacy class action lawsuits. The settlement provides injunctive relief in the form of not collecting data from gamers under a certain age. Click here to learn more.

A class action lawsuit alleging that Disney and Viacom unlawfully scrape data from child video game players will proceed, per a California federal judge’s recent decision.

U.S. District Judge James Donato allowed the data scraping class action lawsuit to proceed, nixing a dismissal bid by Disney, Viacom, and others.

The judge eliminated some claims, but preserved most of the allegations in the Disney, Viacom class action lawsuit.

The companies argued that parents had not outlined specific allegations about how they collected children’s data, however, Judge Donato disagreed. According to Judge Donato, the parents presented specific information on what data the company was collecting, how that information was collected.

Judge Donato said that “current privacy expectations are developing, to say the least, with respect to a key issue raised in these cases — whether the data subject owns and controls his or her personal information, and whether a commercial entity that secretly harvests it commits a highly offensive or egregious act.”

According to Judge Donato, the Disney and Viacom kid data class action lawsuits should proceed because “the court cannot say that the answers are so patently obvious that plaintiffs’ allegations are implausible or inadequate as a matter of law.”

Michael McDonald and Tamara Draut filed one kid data scraping class action lawsuit in July 2017, arguing that game makers Kiloo and Sybo scraped data created by video game players who were children.

They claimed that Kiloo and Sybo contracted with advertising companies including like TapJoy Inc., Vungle Inc., and Flurry Inc., to collect data from children. Allegedly, the contractors embedded code in the popular game Subway Surfers that tracked children’s behavior in different apps and electronic devices, and collected their personal information.

Mere days after McDonald and Draut filed their data scraping class action lawsuit, another parent filed two more data scraping class action lawsuits.

In one data class action lawsuit, Amanda Rushing claimed that Disney embedded codes into its games that also allowed Disney to scrap children’s data. She argued that affected games included Beauty and the Beast: Perfect Match, and Disney Princess Palace Pets.

In her data scraping class action lawsuit against Viacom, Rushing argued that Viacom embedded data-collecting code in the game Llama Spit Spit.

The parents are represented by Michael W. Sobol of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, as well as Hank Bates, Allen Carney and David Slade of Carney Bates & Pulliam PLLC.

The Disney Gaming Apps Data Collection Class Action Lawsuit is Amanda Rushing, et al. v. The Walt Disney Company, et al., Case No. 3:17-cv-04419, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The Viacom Gaming Apps Data Collection Class Action Lawsuit is Amanda Rushing v. Viacom Inc., et al., Case No. 3:17­-cv-­04492, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The Subway Surfers Unlawful Data Collection Class Action Lawsuit is Michael McDonald, et al. v. Kiloo APS, et al., Case No. 3:17-cv-04344, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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