Marshalls Defeats Privacy Lawsuit Over Email Pixels

An Arizona resident can't proceed with claims that retail giant TJX Companies -- which owns T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and other stores -- violated a state privacy law by allegedly embedding tracking pixels in emails.

In a ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston held that even if the privacy allegations in the complaint were proven true, the plaintiff wouldn't have “standing” to sue because she wouldn't have suffered a concrete injury.

“Plaintiff’s email address was certainly not private, given that she provided it to defendant when she consented to receive the promotional emails,” Burroughs wrote in a 13-page opinion dismissing the lawsuit. “Nor was there anything particularly private about the email’s subject or other content, as defendant authored the email and therefore would have known the subject and content with or without the pixels.”

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The ruling comes in a class-action complaint against TJX Companies brought last year by Arizona resident Arlette Campos, who alleged that between September 2022 and March 2024 she “frequently” opened emails from Marshalls.

Those messages contained pixels that track information including when emails are opened and read, recipients' locations, how long people spend reading emails, whether they're printed or forwarded, and other “sensitive information,” the complaint alleged.

She claimed the company's alleged use of pixels violated Arizona's Telephone, Utility and Communication Service Records Act -- a 2007 law that prohibits anyone from obtaining communication service records without a customer's authorization, or by the use of deception.

TJX Companies urged Burroughs to dismiss the case at a preliminary stage for several reasons. Among others, the company argued that Campos hadn't suffered a concrete injury, and that the Arizona law was aimed at preventing “pretexting” -- or impersonating customers in order to obtain their records -- and not common email marketing techniques.

“If the Arizona Act means what plaintiff says it means, then every email sent to Arizona residents is unlawful,” the company argued.

The suit is one of a flurry of recent cases alleging that retailers' email practices violate the Arizona law. Other companies sued for allegedly violating that law include H&M and Home Depot, both of which prevailed.

The plaintiff who sued Home Depot, Ivonne Carbajal, has appealed the dismissal of her claims to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

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