After last year’s landmark ruling holding that the Massachusetts Wiretap Act does not prohibit businesses’ use of pixels to capture website browsing data, Massachusetts plaintiffs have shifted their focus to the federal Wiretap Act. The problem: unlike the Massachusetts Wiretap Act, its federal counterpart is a “one-party consent” law, meaning that a business’s consent to the use of the pixels is enough to preclude liability. Last month, a federal court held that a “crime-tort exception” to this consent exemption does not apply when website browsing data is collected for “commercial purposes or advantages.” Goulart v. Cape Cod Healthcare, Inc., 2025 WL 1745732 (D. Mass. June 24, 2025).Continue Reading Court Clarifies Federal Wiretap Act’s Crime-Tort Exception: “Commercial Purposes” Are “Not the Stuff of Which a Crime-Tort Is Made”
Austin Riddick
Austin Riddick is an associate in the firm’s Washington, DC office. He is a member of the Class Actions Practice Group where he represents clients in both state and federal courts. Austin represents companies in the technology, life science, consumer products, and financial services industries. He has experience obtaining positive outcomes for clients through multiple phases of litigation, including drafting dispositive motions, discovery, preparing witnesses for interviews with opposing counsel, appeals, and settlement negotiations.
Austin also maintains an active pro bono practice focused on criminal justice and civil rights issues. He has led negotiations with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on behalf of a client with Brady claims that resulted in the client’s release from prison.
Pennsylvania District Court Judge Remands Case After Finding No Article III Standing to Bring Wiretapping Claim
By Austin Riddick & Kathryn Cahoy on
After removing a lawsuit brought against it in Pennsylvania state court under the Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (“WESCA”) to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Prime Hydration LLC argued in its motion to dismiss that the plaintiff lacked Article III standing. Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro agreed and remanded the case to state court. Heaven v. Prime Hydration LLC, 2025 WL 42964, at *7 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 7, 2025).
Plaintiff Shantay Heaven filed a putative class action in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas asserting that Prime Hydration allowed third parties to track the activity of visitors to Prime Hydration’s website. Id. at *1. Plaintiff asserted that Prime Hydration integrated the third-party pixels into its website. Id. at *2. Those two pieces of code, Plaintiff alleged, allowed Prime Hydration to capture “her searches for drink flavors, . . . and that this information was transmitted to” the third-party servers. Id. at *6.Continue Reading Pennsylvania District Court Judge Remands Case After Finding No Article III Standing to Bring Wiretapping Claim
Court Tosses Google Pixel Wiretap Complaint: Plaintiffs Fail to Allege How Pixel Was Configured or Intent to Collect Health Data
By Austin Riddick & Matthew Verdin on
Website analytics tools targeted in wiretapping lawsuits, such as pixels, often allow businesses to shield or mask collected data to avoid the transmission of sensitive data. A California federal judge recently dismissed a wiretapping complaint filed against Google that glossed over this nuance “to the point of seeming intentionally slippery” in John Doe I, et al. v. Google LLC, 23-cv-02431, 2024 WL 3490744 (N.D. Cal. July 22, 2024).
The twelve plaintiffs in this case claimed that their healthcare providers installed Google technology on their websites, including Google Analytics, to track and collect data about their website activity for advertising purposes. Among the data allegedly collected was the plaintiffs’ “personal health information.” Plaintiffs filed a complaint against Google, asserting a mix of privacy claims, including under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”). According to the plaintiffs, Google unlawfully wiretapped the plaintiffs’ communications with their healthcare providers’ websites, obtaining allegedly sensitive health data in the process.Continue Reading Court Tosses Google Pixel Wiretap Complaint: Plaintiffs Fail to Allege How Pixel Was Configured or Intent to Collect Health Data