A California federal judge has provided a pivotal boost to an ongoing class action lawsuit against Conde Nast Digital , denying the media company's motion to dismiss and allowing a consumer privacy case to proceed.
The suit shines a light on the use of website trackers that allegedly collect personal information without informed consent, an issue at the heart of privacy debates for digital media giants. Background of the Class Action Lawsuit The lawsuit was filed by Aaron Deivaprakash in California federal court,
alleging that Conde Nast Digital 's websites, including newyorker.com and wired.com , installed trackers on users’ browsers, capturing their personal information and tracking their internet activity without consent.
According to court documents, Deivaprakash claims he visited Conde Nast ’s properties multiple times between 2012 and 2024 and was tracked “without his knowledge or consent.” These trackers, Deivaprakash argues, allow third-party advertisers to assemble comprehensive profiles of users, which are then sold for targeting ads.
The lawsuit maintains that this practice constituted a violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) , as none of the tracking was authorized by a court order.
Legal Arguments in Court Conde Nast Digital sought to halt the proceedings, arguing that the trackers used on their sites do not count as "pen registers" under CIPA legislation is “a device or process that records or decodes dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted, but not the contents of a communication” and that users themselves consent to share the data with…
