On Friday July 7, 2023 Anne Heiting filed a complaint in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles captioned as:

ANNE HEITING, an individual
Plaintiff,
vs.
BOSE CORPORATION, a Massachusetts
Corporation; and DOES 1 through 25,
inclusive, Case #: 23STCV15897

In her CIPA/CUCA complaint, Heiting alleges that during her browsing session on Bose’s website, she used a chatbox feature that Bose allegedly recorded without Heiting’s consent.

The complaint states that there are two causes of action. The first cause is for violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, while the second is for violations of the California Unauthorized Access to a Computer Data Act.

For those who are unaware of what CIPA is, CIPA is a criminal action under 631 of the California penal code. This statute allows for a civil action of up to $5,000.

CUCA, is the California Unauthorized Access to a Computer Data Act which under section 502 of the California Penal Code criminalizes the act of accessing a computer or computer network without permission when you have the intent to defraud, cause harm, or commit a crime.

Heiting alleges that there is a code embedded in chatbox, check out the Czar’s full warning here, that diverts content to a third party, in this case sprinklr, when consumers believe that they are sending messages directly to Bose. Heiting alleges that Bose does not mention anywhere that conversations are being monitored, stored and disseminated to parties such as sprinklr.

What’s even more disturbing (if true, which seems like it could be based on the coding images also included in the complaint) is the amount of information being collected. The complaint alleges that personal identifiers, unique device identifiers are being used to gain additional details such as gender, transaction details, location, GPS data and IP addresses. These identifiers are then used by third party marketing groups for various campaigns.

I think everyone can agree that we should all be listening to what happens in this case. I foresee the potential for some extremely interesting changes in marketing laws that could derive from the outcome of this case if it goes the distance.

Joe Zanetti also contributed to this article.