Payless ShoeSource Website Chat Feature Wiretapping CIPA Class Action

This class action brings suit against Payless ShoeSource Worldwide, LLC for violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). The complaint alleges that the company (1) wiretaps the communications website visitors have via the company’s website chat feature and (2) lets at least one other party eavesdrop on these communications, for the purpose of gleaning data to be used for financial gain.

The class for this action is all persons in California (1) who communicated with Payless using a cell phone, within the applicable statute of limitations, and (2) whose communications were recorded or eavesdropped on without their prior consent.

CIPA forbids wiretapping or otherwise eavesdropping on electronic communications without the consent of all parties involved in the communication. The complaint alleges, “Compliance with CIPA is easy, and the vast majority of website operators comply by conspicuously warning visitors when their conversations are being recorded or if third parties are eavesdropping on them.”

Payless operates or otherwise controls the website www.payless.com, but the complaint alleges that it simply ignores CIPA’s prohibitions on wiretapping. According to the complaint, Payless’s wiretapping and sharing with third parties “violate both industry norms and the legitimate expectations of consumers.”

Why would Payless do this? The complaint quotes an industry expert as saying, “Live chat transcripts are the gold mines of customer service. … When people are chatting, you have direct access to their exact pain points.”

Payless accomplishes this wiretapping though a code that is embedded in its chat feature that records and creates transcripts of the conversations that take place there. Then, Payless lets a third-party vendor, which the complaint suggests is Salesforce, secretly intercept the conversations, eavesdrop on them, and store their transcripts. “By definition,” the complaint alleges, Payless’s “chat communications from its website are transmitted to website visitors by telephony subject to the mandates of CIPA.”

According to the complaint, Payless has not informed the visitors that their conversations are being recorded and listened to, and has not gotten their consent to it.

The complaint alleges that, in conversations with the chat feature, visitors may provide “highly sensitive personal data” and would be “shocked and appalled” to learn that the conversations are being recorded and even eavesdropped on for the sake of something called data analytics. Payless’s behavior, the complaint claims, is “illegal, offensive, and contrary to visitor expectations[.]”

The plaintiff in this case, the complaint alleges, is genuinely interested in Payless’s products but also “is a ‘tester’ who works to ensure that companies like [Payless] abide by the strict privacy obligations imposed upon them by California law.”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: CIPA, Recording Electronic Communications Without Consent, Your Privacy, wiretapping