Success in privacy-related litigation requires a combination of substantive expertise in privacy, data security and consumer protection laws, deep experience in the relevant industry, and strong class action litigation skills and experience. Covington’s privacy litigation practice brings all of these attributes to bear for clients and has a demonstrated track record of success through cost-effective litigation strategies and creative legal arguments.
At Covington, privacy-related litigation is looked upon as its own discipline because of the unique substantive knowledge required to win cases. Our litigators have a deep substantive understanding of the laws most commonly at issue in privacy-related litigation, including the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (including both the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act), Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Video Privacy Protection Act, Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, as well as the various state analogues to these statutes, state consumer protection laws, and the common law privacy torts. Covington’s senior litigators also are highly skilled in handling complex, high stakes litigation and have substantial experience in both class action and multi-district litigation.
This approach to privacy-related litigation has been remarkably successful. In the past three years alone, Covington has successfully defended eight privacy-related, consumer class actions for a wide variety of clients ― achieving results that required no monetary payouts. Importantly, our victories came largely at the dismissal phase, which spared our clients otherwise significant costs of discovery and additional pretrial litigation.
Covington’s clients not only appreciate our effectiveness; they also appreciate our efficiency. Our privacy litigators’ substantive expertise and deep industry knowledge means that we are able to “hit the ground running” on new matters, rather than needing to “get up to speed” on the law. We strive for and deliver cost-effective representation for our clients.
Representative Matters
- Achieved dismissal of a putative class action against LinkedIn alleging violations of the Stored Communications Act and state law. The complaint asserted that LinkedIn disclosed LinkedIn user identification numbers and LinkedIn URL addresses to third party advertising companies, which allowed those companies to correlate the identity of a user with his or her previously anonymous Web browsing history.
- Achieved dismissal of a putative class action against Microsoft, CBS, Microsoft, McDonald’s, and Mazda alleging violations of the Wiretap Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and state laws. The complaint alleged that an online ad network used Flash cookies and other tracking mechanisms to build user profiles for the purpose of serving targeted advertising.
- Achieved dismissal of a putative class action against AOL alleging violations of the Wiretap Act, Video Privacy Protection Act, and numerous state laws. The suit alleged unauthorized collection of personal information from the plaintiffs’ computers using “Flash cookies” and unlawful disclosure of video viewing information to third parties.
- Achieved dismissal of a putative class action against National Public Radio alleging violations of the Wiretap Act, Stored Communications Act, and state laws. The complaint alleged that mobile app developers wrongfully transmitted personal information to third party advertising companies.
- Achieved dismissal of a putative class action against The Huffington Post alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The suit asserted unlawful transmission of unsolicited text messages.
- Achieved dismissals of two putative class actions against Cable One, a cable and Internet service provider, in litigation involving claims under the Wiretap Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and related state laws. The litigation arose out of a third party’s test of a system using “deep packet inspection” for the purpose of serving targeted advertisements. We are defending Cable One in a third lawsuit.
- Achieved dismissal of Wiretap Act claim against Microsoft in a putative class action alleging unauthorized collection of geolocation information from the plaintiffs’ mobile devices. We are defending Microsoft against remaining claim under the Stored Communications Act.
- Defending Huawei, a Chinese mobile handset maker, in a putative class action alleging violations of the Wiretap Act, Stored Communications Act, and various state laws. The suit stems from the allegation that third-party mobile analytics software transmitted data about mobile device users’ activities to other parties without authorization.
- Defending AOL in a putative class action alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act based on asserted transmission of unsolicited text messages.
- Defending Shoe Show in a putative class action alleging violation of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act for allegedly printing expiration dates on credit card receipts.
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