California Businesses Face 3,000 CIPA Tracking Lawsuits as SB 690 Spurs Privacy Fight
Updated
Updated · KPBS · Jun 18
California Businesses Face 3,000 CIPA Tracking Lawsuits as SB 690 Spurs Privacy Fight
2 articles · Updated · KPBS · Jun 18
Summary
$5,000 per website visit is the penalty cited in some CIPA suits, leaving small California businesses like Folsom Lake Heating & Air and Element Electric scrambling over website analytics they say they barely understand.
More than 3,000 businesses have been sued, according to reform advocates, as plaintiffs argue tools from providers such as Google, Meta or booking platforms track users without consent under California's wiretapping law.
Defense lawyers say the cases have surged since 2022 because demand letters can be mass-produced, with some businesses facing $30,000 attorney retainers before they can even fight the claims.
SB 690 would shield tracking done for a commercial business purpose, but privacy advocates warn a broad exemption could undercut one of the few laws consumers can use to sue over online data misuse.
That clash has turned a 1967 anti-wiretapping statute into a wider battle over whether California should separate small-business analytics from the data practices of giants like Meta, Google and Oracle.