A U.S. District Judge has recently thrown out a case against LinkedIn because it did not meet the “case or controversy” threshold required for a federal lawsuit to go forward. Last March, Kevin Low filed a privacy case against LinkedIn after he was “humiliated” by LinkedIn’s sharing of his Internet browsing history with marketers.
Another case testing the courts on individual privacy, the case was dropped for a number of reasons. Not only did the judge find that Mr. Low had not suffered any demonstrable financial or emotional harm, but that those who surf the internet can reasonably expect that their browsing histories are being recorded and exploited by one party or another. Also, companies like LinkedIn use cookies to track users’ activity and if they decide to share or sell cookie data, the information given is usually linked to an anonymous user ID.
LinkedIn has corroborated this and stated that they do “not sell, rent or otherwise provide personally identifiable information to third parties.” Because the browsing information could not be linked directly with Mr. Low, his class action has failed.
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