“Years of Deception” Behind Consumer Privacy Violations Alleged

May 2nd, 2023|Categories: HB Risk Notes|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

Mental Health Platform's Data Sharing Practices Challenged. BetterHelp allegedly shared personal identifiable info with third parties.  FTC files administrative complaint asserting "years of deception." Days later, two class actions were filed in the Northern District of California.   Online mental health company BetterHelp, Inc. is facing allegations on two fronts for allegedly sharing personal identifiable information with third parties and breaching consumer privacy. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) initiated an administrative complaint against the California-based online mental health company on March 2, 2023, after what they call years of deceptive practices and blatant denial of a media report published by Jezebel in February 2020. The article cited evidence that BetterHelp shares sensitive patient information and email account information with third parties such as Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest. Days after the FTC filed its complaint, consumers filed two class actions in the Northern District of California’s San Jose Division (C.M. v. BetterHelp, Inc., March 7, 2023, 5:23-cv-01033 and Jane Doe v. BetterHelp, Inc., March 11, 2023, 5:23-cv-01096). Both consumer privacy lawsuits state that their facts are largely supported by experts in the field of data privacy. BetterHelp is a Delaware corporation with its principal office or place of business in Mountain View, Calif. On its website the company claims it is the “world’s largest therapy platform” with more [...]

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Pixel Litigation the Latest Craze in Privacy Law

April 7th, 2023|Categories: HB Risk Notes|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Meta, Google Face Barrage of Pixel Lawsuits in Digital Privacy War META PLATFORMS INC. AND GOOGLE  are currently facing nearly 70 lawsuits involving large companies and some hospital systems or individual health care providers utilizing Pixel tracking tools embedded on their websites and applications. Sensitive private data such as financial information gathered from filing tax returns online or patient healthcare information stored on patient portals is being actively tracked and sent to Meta and Google for both analytical and advertising purposes. Tracking pixels are a 1x1 Pixel graphic that serves as a snippet of code used for tracking user behavior, site conversions, web traffic, and other metrics generated from a site’s server. In 2018, Meta told Congress that there were more than 2 million Pixels across the web, which at the time, was one of the largest data-harvesting operations most internet users had ever seen. Meta makes their Pixel code freely available to anyone and any business – thus the amount of Pixel tracking has exponentially grown since Meta testified before Congress. The analytical information that companies gleam from Pixel tracking is paying off and is featured on everything from fast food companies such as Chick-Fil-A, media companies like iHeart Radio, and even tax-filing websites such as Tax Slayer or TaxAct. Pixel Tax Data On November 22, 2022, [...]

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Greenhouse Gases Cited in Suit to Invalidate Drilling Leases

April 2nd, 2023|Categories: HB Risk Notes|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Environmentalists Argue Federal Government Failed to Analyze Social Costs of Fossil Fuel Emissions from Drilling Leases “Federal public lands used for fossil fuel extraction contribute 24% of the United States’ Greenhouse Emissions,” according to 10 environmental groups in their ongoing lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland, the Bureau of Land Management (BoLM), and BoLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning (Dakota Resource or Council, et al, v. U.S. Department of the Interior, et al., D. D.C., No. 1:22-cv-1853 ). Their lawsuit seeks to invalidate 173 oil and gas leases approved in June 2022 across eight states:  Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Utah, and Wyoming.  Plaintiffs include: Dakota Resource Center, Center for Biological Diversity, Citizens for a Healthy Community, Living Rivers & Colorado Riverkeeper, Montana Environmental Information Center, Rio Grande Waterkeeper, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Western Waterheads Project, and WildEarth Guardians. The environmental groups argue the BoLM is in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 42 U.S.C. § 4321, for failing to make efforts to prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere. The groups also argue that Secretary Haaland failed to follow the instructions of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) 43 U.S.C. § 1701, which requires her office to “take any action necessary to prevent [...]

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