• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 9, 2023

Disney must face claims it violated California and Pennsylvania wiretap laws by allegedly allowing Oracle to gather data from visitors to ESPN.com, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen, stems from a lawsuit brought in May by Pennsylvania resident Amin James and California resident David Sevesind. They claimed that Oracle -- which allegedly was embedded on ESPN.com -- unlawfully intercepted their “keystrokes, mouse clicks, and other electronic communications” for ad-targeting purposes.

“Through its Blue Kai Pixel, Oracle, as procured by Disney, secretly observed, recorded, and otherwise intercepted website visitors’ electronic communications,” the pair alleged in a class-action complaint brought in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

James and Sevesind added that Oracle allegedly used the data “to improve its own marketing and analytical capabilities,” as well as Disney's.

Disney urged Chen to throw out the lawsuit at an early stage for several reasons. Among others, the company said James and Sevesind lacked “standing” to proceed, arguing that their allegations, even if proven true, wouldn't show they experienced a concrete injury.

Disney specifically said the allegations wouldn't support the conclusion that Oracle collected any “personal information.”

“Plaintiffs do not allege that their personal or otherwise private information was intercepted by Oracle,” Disney argued in a motion asking Chen to dismiss the complaint. “Rather, Plaintiffs claim that a narrow set of non-sensitive record information was collected.”

Chen rejected that argument, at least for now.

“At the very least, plaintiffs have made sufficient allegations to create a question of fact as to whether there is sufficiently personal information to support standing,” he wrote.

“Plaintiffs have alleged, for instance, that information intercepted by Oracle included information about, e.g., specific web pages viewed, search terms entered, and purchase behavior,” he added. “In addition, plaintiffs have alleged that the information that is collected is not anonymized.”