The present case is a consolidated class action against several Internet advertisement services and Google. The lawsuit initially arose out of a report published in 2012 by the Wall Street Journal: "Google's iPhone Tracking: Web Giant, Others Bypassed Apple Browser Settings for Guarding Privacy," which alleged that Google and several Internet advertisement companies had circumvented the users' web browsers, Apple's Safari and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, by placing tracking cookies capable of monitoring web activities for individualized or targeted advertising purposes.
The plaintiffs asserted three federal law claims under the Wiretap Act, the Stored Communications Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The lawsuit also involved six California state law claims against Google only, including the violation of privacy rights and the state's Comprehensive Computer Data Access. In October 2013, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. In November 2015, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded to the district court for additional proceedings. It affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs' claim under the federal Wiretap Act on the ground that the defendants were parties to all electronic transmissions communicated directly with the plaintiffs' web browsers. It also sided with the district court's finding that the plaintiffs had failed to allege cognizable losses as required by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The Court, however, vacated the dismissal of the plaintiffs' California privacy claims against Google on the ground that a reasonable jury could find the company's act of bypassing the tracking cookie blockers as a serious invasion of privacy contemplated by California law.