Overstock class action claims company ‘eavesdrops’ on website chat communications

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Overstock website class action overview: 

• Who: An Overstock customer sued the online retailer. 
• Why: The plaintiff says the company illegally records the private conversations of consumers using the chat function on its website.
• Where: The Overstock class action lawsuit was filed in a California federal court.

Overstock illegally records the private conversations of consumers using the chat function on its website, a new class action lawsuit alleges.

Plaintiff Jose Licea filed the class action lawsuit against Overstock.com Inc Oct. 16 in a California federal court, alleging violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). 

According to the lawsuit, Overstock secretly wiretaps the private conversations of everyone who communicates through the chat feature at www.overstock.com and allows at least one third party to eavesdrop on such communications in real time for its own financial gain. 

The online retailer does not obtain visitors’ consent to either the wiretapping or the eavesdropping in violation of the law, the Overstock class action alleges.  

Overstock class action alleges company embeds code that records, transcribes conversations

The vast majority of website operators comply with the CIPA by “conspicuously” warning visitors if their conversations are being recorded or if third parties are eavesdropping on them, the Overstock class action states.

“Instead, Defendant both wiretaps the conversations of all website visitors and allows a third party to eavesdrop on the conversations in real time during transmission,” according to the Overstock class action. “Why? Because, as one industry expert notes, ‘Live chat transcripts are the gold mines of customer service. At your fingertips, you have valuable customer insight… When people are chatting, you have direct access to their exact pain points.’”

To enable the wiretapping, Overstock covertly embeds code into its chat feature that automatically records and creates transcripts of all such private conversations, the Overstock class action alleges. 

Overstock allows third-party business Salesforce to intercept the conversations in real time, the lawsuit claims.

Licea looks to represent anyone in California who communicated with the company via the chat feature and experienced eavesdropping. He seeks certification of the class action, damages, fees, costs and a jury trial. 

Meanwhile, Logitech faces similar recent claims that it illegally records the private conversations of consumers using the chat function on its website.

Have you used the Overstock website? Let us know your thoughts on these claims in the comments! 

The plaintiff is represented by Scott J. Ferrell of Pacific Trial Attorneys.

The Overstock website class action lawsuit is Jose Licea v. Overstock.com Inc et al., Case No. 3:22-cv-01594-BEN-JLB, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. 

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