Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, in the Northern District of California, granted a TV audience analytics provider’s motion to dismiss a putative class action alleging violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA), the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), and common law intrusion upon seclusion, among other claims.
1. California Privacy Laws Have Limited Extraterritorial Reach
The court reaffirmed that California’s privacy statutes, including CIPA and CDAFA, do not apply to conduct occurring outside the state unless the legislature’s intent to do so is clearly expressed. In this case, the plaintiffs, residents of North Carolina and Oklahoma, alleged that defendant intercepted their viewing data via chips embedded in their televisions. However, the court found that the alleged interception occurred entirely outside California, and the statutes’ language and legislative history did not support extraterritorial application. As a result, the CIPA and CDAFA claims were dismissed.
2. Article III Standing and Consent Issues
Defendant argued that plaintiffs lacked standing because they had consented to data collection. While defendant submitted declarations attesting to opt-in prompts for data collection, the court found this evidence insufficient to conclusively establish consent at the pleading stage, particularly in the absence of screenshots or specific details about the prompts. The court declined to dismiss for lack of standing, noting that plaintiffs’ allegations of non-consent were not rebutted by defendant’s evidence.
3. High Bar for Common Law Intrusion Upon Seclusion
The court dismissed the common law intrusion upon seclusion claim, finding that plaintiffs failed to allege a highly offensive invasion of privacy. The complaint’s vague references to “other information” collected by defendant did not establish a protected privacy interest, and the collection of IP addresses and device information alone was not deemed sufficiently offensive under prevailing case law. The court cited recent Ninth Circuit authority emphasizing that actionable intrusions must involve sensitive or private information, which was not plausibly alleged here.
4. VPPA Claims Require Direct Involvement in Video Delivery
The court also dismissed the VPPA claim, holding that defendant, as an analytics software provider embedded in smart TVs, was not a “video tape service provider” as defined by the statute. The court distinguished defendant’s role from that of companies directly delivering video content, finding that merely collecting data about video usage does not meet the statutory definition.
5. Equitable Claims Must Be Supported by Specific Allegations
Plaintiffs’ unjust enrichment and standalone injunctive relief claims were also dismissed. The unjust enrichment claim failed due to the lack of specific allegations about the nature of the data collected and how it constituted a benefit unjustly retained by defendant. The injunctive relief claim was dismissed as California law does not recognize it as a standalone cause of action.
STEVE DELLASALA, et al., v. SAMBA TV, INC., No. 3:25-CV-03470-JSC, 2025 WL 3034069 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 30, 2025).
