Judge Curtis A. Kin of the Los Angeles County Superior Court sustained defendant’s demurrer, with leave to amend, to allegations that its website installed a pen register or trap and trace on plaintiff’s device.
Historically, courts recognized that “[a] pen register is a mechanical device which records the numbers dialed from a telephone[.]” (People v. Blair (1979) 25 Cal.3d 640, 654.) While the statutory definition ·of a pen register now includes electronic communications in mediums other than simply telephone communications, Plaintiff has not provided authority showing that the category of information collected by pen registers as defined by the statute has been expanded. The analog of the number dialed by a telephone here is the IP address and related information of a website accessed by a computer – but not the computer’s own IP address or identifying information. Although Plaintiff alleges conclusorily that the Beacon is a PRITT device, Plaintiff does not allege that the Beacon – or any other software installed on users’ devices by the Website – collects the outgoing addressing information from visitors’ devices or browsers. Plaintiff therefore has not alleged the use of a pen register.
Nor has Plaintiff alleged the use of a trap and trace device. Plaintiff at most alleges that Defendant’s Website collects the IP addresses and other information of visitors incoming to the website – the equivalent of if Defendant had used a trap and trace device on its own website, rather than on Plaintiff’s device.
The problem with this argument is that it is normal for websites to track the IP addresses of their visitors. “Analogously, e-mail and Internet users have no expectation of privacy in the to/from addresses of their messages or the IP addresses of the websites they visit because they should know that this information is provided to and used by Internet service providers for the specific purpose of directing the routing of information. Like telephone numbers, which provide instructions to the ‘switching equipment that processed those numbers,’ e-mail to/from addresses and IP addresses are not merely passively conveyed through third party equipment, but rather are voluntarily turned over in order to direct the third party’s servers.” (U.S. v. Forrester (9th Cir. 2008) 512 F.3d 500, 510.) As Defendant points out, and as the Court takes judicial notice, the Los Angeles Superior Court’s own website contains a notice that it may collect and record the IP addresses of visitors. Without alleging that Defendant installed software on Plaintiff’s device or browser that collected incoming contact information to Plaintiff’s device, Plaintiff has not alleged anything above and beyond how the internet normally works.
Aviles v. Liveramp, Inc., No. 24STCV19869, 2025 WL 487196 (Cal.Super. Jan. 28, 2025).
