We don’t always talk about bad news on CIPAWorld. Sometimes, there is good news in a CIPA case. 

Today is one of those days.

Converse has a chatbot on their website. The data from the chats are stored on Salesforce servers. Ms. Gutierrez went to Converse’s website. She chatted with the chatbot. She then sued Converse for various California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) claims and a claim the Converse violated California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (“CDAFA”). All of the CIPA claims and the CDAFA claim were dismissed except the claim that Converse was aiding and abetting in Salesforce’s violation of CIPA.

In Gutierrez v. Converse (2024 WL 3511648, C.D. Cal. July 12, 2024), the Court dismissed the remaining claim for violation of CIPA because the Plaintiff failed to establish there was a genuine dispute of material fact around whether Converse aided and abetted Salesforce.

The first clause of CIPA (intentionally tapping or making unauthorized connections with telephone communications) was inapplicable because there was no telephone communications involved in the case. The Plaintiff used the chat feature from her cell phone, but that is not telephone communications, that’s internet communications. If there is no violation of the first clause of CIPA, then there can be no aiding or abetting in violation of the first clause.

The second clause of CIPA prohibits willfully reading or attempting to read the contents of a message in transit. Here, the Plaintiff again doesn’t present any evidence showing Salesforce intercepts any messages in transit. The Defendant presented uncontroverted evidence that the messages in the chat feature are encrypted during transit. Storing the messages on a Salesforce owned server doesn’t mean they have access, especially if (as here) they are password protected. Again, if there is no violation of the second clause, then there can be no aiding or abetting.

Regardless of how liberal courts are interpreting CIPA cases, the Plaintiffs still have to adequately plead these cases.