Privacy Violation Suits Filed Against Toys R Us, Others
Two class actions lawsuits, alleging improper dissemination of customer data, have been filed against Toys R Us Inc.
Finkelstein, Thompson & Loughran, a New Jersey-based law firm, filed a complaint against the toy retailer on Wednesday, alleging breach of contract, invasion of privacy and violation of electronic transmission law, according to reports. The suit seeks damages on behalf of individuals that have made purchases between Aug. 5, 1998 and the present.
Another suit was filed July 28 by the law firm Millburg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach. It names Toys R Us, Toysrus.com, and Coremetrics, a San Diego-based research firm.
Filed in the San Bernardino District of the Superior Court of California, the action alleges that the three defendants violated the privacy of site visitors, saying that their Web-browsing activities and information “monitored, intercepted and/or transmitted to Coremetrics or other third parties.”
Millburg Weiss also filed a petition for a temporary restraining order that would prevent the three companies from the information gathered online pending a Sept. 11 hearing.
These actions come on the heels of an escalating war of words between Interhack Corp., an online security firm, and Coremetrics. On Monday, Interhack alleged in a statement that four Web sites (Toysrus.com and its newly launched babiesrus.com; lucy.com; and fusion.com) were providing data to Coremetrics in violation of privacy guidelines.
Coremetrics uses its data-aggregation facilities to “observe and to track behavior of users as they use a vendor’s Web site” potentially without regard as to the age of the site browser, Interhack charged.
Coremetrics called Interhack’s allegation”highly speculative and misleading,” and said in a statement Interhack’s stance was based on “the erroneous assumption that Coremetrics collects data across multiple sites with the intention of reselling it to third parties.”
The research firm added that it is “contractually prohibited from making the data it collects for clients available to third parties,” and that its clients own their own data. Coremetrics also pointed out that has a privacy statement and opt-out mechanism on its site, and that that it follows the guidelines set by the Online Privacy Alliance, the Direct Marketing Association, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
