• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, March 27, 2025

California resident Katherine Wilson can proceed with a claim that Google violated a state wiretap law by allegedly tracking her activity on the state's Department of Motor Vehicles website, a federal judge ruled this week.

The ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Eumi K. Lee in the Northern District of California, comes in a lawsuit brought in May 2024, when Wilson alleged that the company “secretly used Google Analytics and DoubleClick” to collect information from her motor vehicle record when she renewed a disability parking placard.

Wilson's complaint included a claim that Google violated California's wiretap law, which prohibits anyone from intercepting communications without the parties' consent.

Google urged the judge to dismiss the matter at an early stage of the proceedings, arguing that even if the allegations were true, they wouldn't show that the company ran afoul of the state wiretap law.

Google specifically argued that it was the passive recipient of the information, writing that it was “self-evident that the DMV set up its own webpages and chose how to configure its URLs.”

The company also argued it was effectively a party to the communications because acted as a “mere vendor of advertising services receiving information for DMV's benefit.”

Lee rejected that argument for now, ruling that Wilson alleged that Google harnessed the information for its own advertising services.

“Based on these allegations, Google did not act solely as an extension of the DMV,” she wrote.

Wilson also claimed in the complaint that Google violated the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act -- a 1994 statute that prohibits anyone from knowingly obtaining personal information from a motor vehicle record for an improper purpose.

Google argued that claim should be dismissed because, even if the allegations in the complaint were proven true, they wouldn't show that the information at the heart of the case came from a motor vehicle record.

Lee agreed with Google on that point, writing that the information “came from plaintiff herself when she entered it into the DMV’s website.”

The judge dismissed that claim, but said Wilson could reformulate her allegations and bring them again by April 15.