Pennsylvania Consumer Sues Zillow, Lowe’s, Expedia Over Alleged Website Tracking Software

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A Pennsylvania woman has filed proposed class action lawsuits against Zillow, Lowe’s and Expedia over allegations that the companies have illegally and secretly tracked consumers’ activities on their respective websites.

At issue in the 21-page lawsuits, which were filed on September 7, is “session replay” software allegedly installed on the defendants’ websites. According to the suits, the session replay software records a visitor’s every interaction with the site, including mouse clicks and movements, keystrokes, search terms, inputted information, and pages and content viewed.

The similarly worded cases allege that this software is unlike the “harmless collection” of information done through website cookies, analytics tools and similar technology in that session replay “spyware,” which allows a website operator to essentially view a video of a user’s visit to the site or even watch in real time, can include sensitive personal information about a consumer’s activities and habits.

“The ‘session replay’ spyware utilized by Defendant is not a traditional website cookie, tag, web beacon, or analytics tool,” each complaint states. “It is a sophisticated computer software that allows Defendant to contemporaneously intercept, capture, read, observe, re-route, forward, redirect, and receive incoming electronic communications to its website.”

Per the suits, Zillow, Lowe’s and Expedia have never informed website visitors of their use of this tracking software or obtained users’ consent to the interception of their electronic communications.

The lawsuits each allege violations of the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act.

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The plaintiff in all three lawsuits is a Pennsylvania consumer who says she visited each of the defendants’ websites dozens of times or more over the past year.

Per the suits, the third-party session replay software installed on Zillow, Lowe’s and Expedia’s websites tracked the plaintiff’s interactions with the sites without her knowledge or consent.

“Plaintiff reasonably believed that she was interacting privately with Defendant’s website, and not that she was being recorded and that those recordings could later be watched by Defendant’s employees, or worse yet, live while Plaintiff was on the website,” the lawsuits say.

The cases claim that the level of detail of the information collected by the defendants through session replay software indicates that they were attempting to “gain an unlawful understanding” of users’ habits and likes in order to market their goods and services to the public. In other words, this sensitive data was collected not to “monitor and discover broken website features” but for marketing purposes, the lawsuits allege.

The cases look to represent Pennsylvania residents who visited Zillow.com, Lowes.com or Expedia.com and whose electronic communications were intercepted by one of the defendants or on their behalf without the individual’s prior consent.

The three complaints can be read below.

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