Class Action Status Awarded in Lawsuit against comScore for Privacy Violations

A federal appeals court ruled this week, giving permission for a lawsuit to proceed with class action status against comScore, one of the Internet's largest user tracking firms. The court’s decision agreed with the April 2013 decision to the grant class action status, paving the way for what could be the largest privacy case to ever go to trial in terms of class size. Potentially covering damages for millions of comScore software users, up to a maximum of $1,000 per violation. ComScore is an online analytics firm that collects Internet user data and sells it to more 2,000 firms, including some of the world's largest e-commerce sites, online retailers, advertising agencies, and publishers, for use in online marketing and targeted advertising. The company claims that it captures more than 1.5 trillion user-interactions monthly, or approximately 40% of the monthly page views of the Internet. It is accused of extensive privacy violations, including secretly collecting and selling Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, and other personal data collected from consumer systems.