Papa John's sued for 'wiretap' spying on website mouse clicks, keystrokes

2022-10-06 20:20

Papa John's is being sued by a customer - not for its pizza but for allegedly breaking the US Wiretap Act by snooping on the way he browsed the pie-slinger's website.

The proposed class-action suit accuses Papa John's of violating both the Wiretap Act and the California Invasion of Privacy Act by going too far with its session replay software.

While his complaint doesn't name the software - or "Spyware" as he put it - that Papa John's allegedly used, he claims such code is illegal.

Microsoft accused of sharing data of Office 365 business subscribers with Facebook and its app devs. The lawsuit is seeking "The greater of $10,000 or $100 per day for each violation" of the Wiretap Act as well as $2,500 in statutory damages for each violation of CIPA. Unfortunately for Papa John's, if found liable, that could amount to a lot of cash.

As for session replay code, Papa John's would hardly be the first company to be accused in US courts of abusing it.

While many cases brought in Florida have been dismissed in recent years, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in June that The National Law Review said opened the door to a slew of new session replay lawsuits in California using the same legal reasoning applied in the Papa John's case.

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