Words With Friends Class Action Filed Over Data Breach

A recent class action lawsuit claims that Words With Friends players had their personal information compromised in a data breach.

Plaintiff I.C., a minor who is suing through his parent Nasim Chaudhri, and plaintiff Amy Gitre, claim that they and other players had their personal information stolen by a data breach in the fall of 2019.

Defendant Zynga offers a variety of games, including their incredibly popular Words With Friends game. The game is highly ranked by consumers in terms of popularity, winning the title of most popular Apple game in 2016.

In order to play Zynga’s games, consumers are required to provide personal identifying information. Often times, this data is provided through a user’s Facebook account. As a result, Zynga allegedly collects the names, email addresses, login IDs, password reset tokens, Facebook IDS, and other information.

This data was allegedly compromised in a data breach in September 2019. The company announced the breach through a player security announcement, assuring customers that they did not believe financial information was compromised in the breach. However, Draw Something and Words With Friends players may have had their account login information stolen, according to Zynga.

“The security of our player data is extremely important to us,” Zynga said in their announcement. “We are working hard to address this matter and remain committed to supporting our community.”

I.C. argues that a significant number of Zynga players are minors like himself. The Zynga data breach says that, even assuming only eight percent of Zynga’s users are minors, 14 million children may have had their information compromised in the data breach.

The Zynga class action claims that youngsters could be particularly affected by data breaches because they are likely not monitoring their credit. In fact, the FTC reportedly agrees that children could suffer from the after affects of a data breach for years before they or their parents didn’t realize that something is wrong. I.C. claims that Zynga knew this but failed to protect the information of minor children with the care it deserved.

“Based on the common use of mobile games among minors, Zynga was well aware of the economic and repetitional value of exploiting children for its own monetary gain, and it should have been equally concerned with protecting the PPI entrusted to it by that valuable and relatively defenseless group,” the Zynga class action claims.

The plaintiffs seeks to represent a Class of all individuals who had their information compromised by the Words With Friends data breach. They also seek to represent two subclasses of adult or minor Class Members, respectively.

Was your information compromised in the Words With Friends data breach? Let us know in the comment section below.

Plaintiffs and the proposed Class are represented by Adam J. Zapala and Reid Gaa of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP; Scott C. Nehrbass and Daniel J. Buller of Foulston Siekfin LLP; and E. Powell Miller and Sharon S. Almonrode of The Miller Law Firm PC.

The Words With Friends Data Breach Class Action Lawsuit is I.C., et al. v. Zynga Inc., Case No. 3:20-cv-01539-LB, in the U.S. District Court for the District of California.

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