Proposed Class Action Lawsuit Alleges Amazon Sold Consumers’ Geolocation Data

Amazon reportedly faces a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the company tracked consumers’ movements through their cellphones and sold the data it collected.

The complaint alleges that an Amazon Ads SDK embedded in apps by tens of thousands of app developers enabled Amazon to collect timestamped geolocation data about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, Reuters reported Wednesday (Jan. 29).

“Amazon has effectively fingerprinted consumers and has correlated a vast amount of personal information about them entirely without consumers’ knowledge and consent,” the complaint said, per the report.

Amazon did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

In another, separate case, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Jan. 16 that General Motors agreed to a proposed order to resolve the regulator’s allegations that the automaker collected, used and sold data from connected cars without drivers’ knowledge or consent. The data included drivers’ precise geolocation data, which disclosed things like visits to medical facilities and their driving behavior.

In another case, it was reported Jan. 8 that a federal judge in California denied a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging that Google violated the privacy of both Android and non-Android mobile phone services users by continuing to collect location data from users even after they turned the location tracking setting off in their privacy settings.

A judge ruled that Google didn’t sufficiently disclose how its Web & App Activity setting worked and rejected Google’s argument that users consented to the tracking.

Google said at the time in a statement: “Privacy controls have long been built into our service and the allegations here are a deliberate attempt to mischaracterize the way our products work. We will continue to make our case in court against these patently false claims.”

In two other cases, the FTC said in December that it took action against data brokers, alleging that the companies sold sensitive location data.

In one action, the agency announced a proposed order that would prohibit Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel from selling, disclosing or using sensitive location data in any product or service.

In another action, the FTC said a proposed settlement order would prohibit Mobilewalla from selling sensitive location data and from collecting consumer data from online advertising auctions for purposes other than participating in those auctions.