Report from MediaPost
In Brief – Kochava has reached a settlement in a private class action lawsuit that will require the data broker to make several major privacy changes. The agreement filed with US District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill requires the company to implement six policy changes, including allowing consumers to opt out of the collection of their geolocation data through a simple web form, block the sharing or use of raw location data associated with so-called “sensitive” venues including health care facilities, schools, and jails, and ensure that location data that is collected during the operations of an app can only be used by that app’s developers unless the user has consented to general location sharing. The company also agreed to pay the plaintiffs’ lawyers $1.5 million and provide $17,500 to each of the lead class members, but beyond that there was no financial award. If approved by Judge Winmill, the settlement will resolve several lawsuits that were filed in 2022 and 2023 after the US Federal Trade Commission charged Kochava with acting unfairly by allegedly selling mobile device data that could expose sensitive information, such as whether people visited doctors’ offices or religious institutions.
Context – Judge Winmill is also presiding over the FTC’s lawsuit against Kochava. The judge dismissed the initial FTC foray as too “theoretical” and that failed to show evidence that the sale or use of the data collected by Kochava caused any actual substantial injuries. But he agreed in his review of the subsequent effort that it was possible that if Kochava’s business customers could purchase data that is granular and non-anonymized that it could expose consumers “to significant risks of secondary harms” and could be an “unfair” trade practice. Kochava’s CEO has argued that the regulator’s lawsuit was “really about the FTC attempting to make an end-run around Congress to create data privacy law.” Although there were widespread business concerns with the regulatory activism of the FTC led by Chair Lina Kahn, the new Chairman, Andrew Ferguson, did support the filing of the FTC’s second amended complaint against Kochava last July.