Ticketmaster Faces Class Action Alleging Illegal Tracking and Surveillance

Ticket News is reporting on a proposed class action lawsuit aimed at Ticketmaster over its alleged unlawful use of third-party tracking technology to collect and share users’ browsing data with advertisers and analytics firms without proper notice or consent.

The details:

• The lawsuit was filed on January 5 in the US District Court for the Central District of California by plaintiff Jeffrey Scruggs.

• Scruggs is looking to represent every California resident whose browser was subjected to the “installation, execution, embedding, or injection” of tracking tools while using Ticketmaster.com “during the applicable statute of limitations.”

Matter of consent:

• As per Ticket News, the filing asserts that trackers “fire” as soon as a page on Ticketmaster.com loads, and that Ticketmaster fails to provide an effective opt-in mechanism.

• It also alleges Ticketmaster covertly allows third-party tools to collect real-time user metadata such as IP addresses, page URLs and device IDs, and transmit it to outside servers during site use.

Penalties:

• The suit is seeking damages and an injunction forcing Ticketmaster to stop these practices and introduce “clear and conspicuous” opt-in prompts.

• Ticketmaster is yet to file a formal response.