Popular pizza chain Papa John’s is being sued for allegedly bugging its website.
The plaintiff is asking for at least $100 a day of infringement, per person, and given that this is a class-action lawsuit, in the event the company is declared guilty, the damages could amount to quite a bit.
According to a lawsuit filed earlier this week in a federal district court in Southern California, Papa John installed what’s known as a “session restart program” – a program capable of recording, and then replaying, a user’s session on the website. This way, the company can see exactly where users clicked, hovered their mouse, when they decided to abandon their cart, and whatever else was part of their session with Papa John’s.
Violation of US wiretapping law
While this type of tracking is nothing new, and many companies are using it to improve the website and its performance, Papa John’s has gone a long way, claim plaintiffs, and in the process – violated US wiretapping law, as well as California privacy violation law (Opens in a new tab) CIPA Act.
The lawsuit says: “The alleged use of ‘session restart’ technology is to monitor and discover features of the disabled websites; however, the extent and details collected by users of the technology … far exceed the stated purpose.”
The plaintiff is now demanding “the largest of $10,000 or $100 per day for each violation.” Furthermore, he is claiming $2,500 in statutory damages for multiple violations of CIPA. At the moment, the extent of the potential fine is unknown, but the plaintiff says “millions” of people were illegally spied on. This means that if the company is found guilty, the fine could run into the millions as well.
Papa John’s is currently silent about this.
Session replay software is part of every marketing and IT department’s regular arsenal and is usually used to monitor and improve user experience.
Via: log (Opens in a new tab)