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A recent class action lawsuit claims that the WebMD website violates California privacy law by recording their visitors.
Plaintiff Mary Narvaez says that she visited the WebMD website several times, most recently in July 2020. Unbeknownst to her, the website allegedly recorded her activity through Mouseflow software.
Narvaez says that Mouseflow software creates a video of consumers who visit the WebMD website. In this video, the consumer’s keystrokes and mouse clicks are allegedly recorded, along with their location and device type. According to the plaintiff, she was not told that Mouseflow would be recording her activity and did not consent to these recordings.
“[B]y using Mouseflow’s technology, Defendants willfully and without the consent of all parties to the communication, or in any unauthorized manner, read or attempted to read or learn the contents or meaning of electronic communications of [Narvaez],” the WebMD website class action lawsuit contends.
According to Narvaez, these actions violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act. This law prohibits unlawful recording of communications between two parties without both of those parties’ consent. Although the law is most typically applied to phone calls, Narvaez argues that her visit to the WebMD website was an internet communication between herself and the site.
Narvaez seeks to represent a Class of consumers who live in California and visited the WebMD website where they had their activities recorded by Mouseflow. She says that thousands of Class Members could be included in this group.
On behalf of herself and the proposed Class, Narvaez seeks damages of at least $5,000 or three times the actual damages for each individual as allowed under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, along with interest, court costs, and attorneys’ fees. The plaintiff has also asked the court for injunctive relief which would require the WebMD website to not record users.
WebMD is not the first company to face similar allegations under California’s Invasion of Privacy Act.
In October, Cars.com was hit with a class action lawsuit by a California man who claims that his activity was unlawfully recorded while on the website. Like Narvaez, this plaintiff maintains that he never consented to this recording by Cars.com and Lead Intelligence, a tech company.
Noom, a weight loss plan website, also faced legal action in October when they were hit with a class action lawsuit. According to the plaintiffs in this case, Noom partnered with digital trackers from FullStory Inc. to monitor visitors to their websites.
The plaintiffs note that this recording is especially harmful since website visitors are directed to provide private information such as their height, weight, age and other medical conditions during the weight loss screening program.
Earlier this month, Carnival Cruise Lines faced a privacy class action lawsuit under the California Invasion of Privacy Act for allegedly monitoring website activity without consent.
Unlike other companies who reportedly partnered with a tech company to record visitors, Carnival embedded wiretap functionality in their website’s JavaScript coding. This allegedly allowed the company to “secretly observe and record” the activity of website visitors.
All of the plaintiffs in these cases argue that they and other proposed Class Members never provided consent to have their website activity monitored.
Did you visit the WebMD website? Are you worried that the website may have recorded your activity? Let us know in the comment section below.
Narvaez and the proposed Class are represented by L. Timothy Fisher, Joel D. Smith, and Scott A. Bursor of Bursor & Fisher PA.
The WebMD Website Class Action Lawsuit is Mary Narvaez v. WebMD LLC, et al., Case No. 2:20-at-01139, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
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585 thoughts onWebMD Secretly Records Visitors to Its Website, Claims Class Action Lawsuit
Yep, used WebMD lots of times. Please add me.
Please add me , I have utilized Webmd website countless times.
Please add me.. I’m not surprised at all by the unethical practises of WebMD a very shady company selling pharma funded snake oil. I had the misfortune of working in their engineering department. Never faced such racism in my life as I did at WebMD office in Manhattan. I completed every task on time but was still scrutinized and harassed. The dirty politics made me suffer mentally and physically. Implementing mouseflow was one of their key projects to steal privacy of their users and target them with sketchy ads to fleece their clients. Despite passing GDPR and CCPA laws, they did not care about the privacy of their users and used dodgy and back door means to keep snooping on their users and selling their private data. They also a very sketchy review feature where anyone can post fake reviews against physicians and use that as a leverage to extort money from physicians in exchange for money. They call it “sponsored profiles” and “enhanced profiles” which is another name for extortion money. I can’t wait for the day this disgusting company gets sued and shutdown for good. It’ s a sinking ship surviving on borrowed time. They’ve destroyed so many lives directly and indirectly through their evil board of directors, managers and the scammy, intentionally misleading, sloppy, flawed so called health content that has ruined the lives of so many Americans. Shut it down.
Please contact me. I also worked for WebMD and faced discrimination and
bad experience with their sponsored content
I can vouch for the facf that WebMD is a very unethical business. I worked in their technology department and was witness to their shoddy practises. They implemented mouseflow to record user activity despite the privacy laws. Even after the law was passed to explicitly obtain user consent WebMD kept their users in the dark and kept recording their private activity. This is nothing new WebMD has the worst tech department they have corrupt flawed data and they extort money from doctors through fake reviewd on their site. They are a sinking ship living off the past. It will be a dead business pretty soon all their soyes are sketchy. They tamper user data don’t ever trust them. Their head office in NY is hub of racism and discrimination. The team I worked with was all Indian except for me and I was constantly discriminated and harassed by the corrupt management. I can’t wait for someone to sue this company for discrimination and malpractices it’s about time they are held accountable.
ADD ME
Just used it today like I always have….oh me oh my count me in.
Use the site all the time!!! Oh my!
yes all the time
Yes add me
Add me