Dow Jones -- DoubleClick Inc. said a U.S. District judge dismissed all federal and state privacy lawsuits filed against the online advertising company.
The suits alleged that DoubleClick's
ad-delivery practices violated three federal statutes: the Electronic Privacy Act, the Wiretap Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The company said Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald concluded that the
plaintiffs failed to plead violations of any of the three federal statutes under which they brought suit.
The court also found an absence of evidence in legislative and judicial history to
suggest that Congress intended to prohibit the type of business practices employed by DoubleClick.
Earlier this month, DoubleClick said the Federal Trade Commission had closed its inquiry into
the company's ad-serving and data-collection practices.
The FTC ruled that the company "never used or disclosed" customers' personal information "for purposes other those disclosed in its privacy
policy."
The FTC began the investigation in February 2000 when it discovered that DoubleClick planned to create a massive database that matched information about individuals' Web-surfing habits
with other information such as addresses, telephone numbers and buying behavior.
In 1999, the company had announced plans to gather such data but renounced them after a firestorm of criticism. It
had planned to use consumer data gathered by the offline database company it had acquired, Abacus Direct.
Last May, DoubleClick's chief executive said it wouldn't merge personal and anonymous
data until there were clear industry-government guidelines on the matter. Even though such guidelines came out in July, DoubleClick has said it decided not to match personal data with web surfing.