• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

A federal judge has thrown out a class-action complaint alleging that PayPal's Honey, a browser extension that offers coupons that can be downloaded, violated users' privacy by "examining" the websites they visit.

In a ruling issued this week, U.S. District Court Judge P. Casey Pitts in the Northern District of California said the "express purpose" of the browser was to send coupons to users based on their browsing data.

"Plaintiffs allege that a browser extension downloaded for the express purpose of monitoring consumers' online shopping activity and automatically applying coupon codes at checkout tracked their browsing data," Pitts wrote. "Given that the very purpose of the extension plaintiffs downloaded was to track their browsing, the conduct alleged here involved the kind of 'routine commercial behavior' that does not constitute 'a highly offensive intrusion of privacy.'"

The ruling grows out of a lawsuit filed last year by a group of users based in the U.K. Their initial complaint, as well as two subsequent amended complaints, lacked allegations regarding privacy. Instead, those earlier complaints alleged that Honey failed to seek out the "best" possible coupons, but instead offered discount codes from it received from affiliates or other sources.

Pitts dismissed those complaints, but allowed the plaintiffs to reformulate their allegations and bring them again.

In January, the plaintiffs filed a third amended complaint that reiterated the earlier allegations and also included new privacy allegations.

That complaint alleged that Honey's browser extension "examines what websites the Honey user has visited and what cookies exist on the user’s browser."

"Defendants’ intrusion into the electronic devices of plaintiffs ... is so serious as to contribute an egregious breach of the social norms such that the breach is highly offensive," the complaint alleged.

On Monday, Pitts dismissed the complaint -- including the new privacy allegations -- with prejudice.

"Plaintiffs fail to allege anything about what was tracked by Honey, let alone what behavior was specifically tracked," he wrote. "The collection of browsing data, without more detail on why collecting that data could be intrusive, does not involve conduct that can be deemed 'highly offensive' for the purposes of an invasion of privacy claim."

He also essentially said the allegations that Honey's coupons were not the "best," even if proven true, would not support the plaintiffs' bid for either monetary compensation or an injunction.