Judge dismisses "BrowserGate" lawsuits against LinkedIn over extension scanning
A US federal judge dismissed two class-action lawsuits accusing LinkedIn of illegally scanning users' browser extensions, ruling that plaintiffs failed to show a concrete privacy harm. The judge left room for an amended complaint but voiced doubt it could succeed.
A judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of California has dismissed two class-action lawsuits against LinkedIn that alleged the Microsoft-owned company illegally scanned users' Chrome browser extensions. Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that plaintiffs Nicholas Farrell and Jeff Ganan, both California residents, failed to establish legal standing because neither claimed that their own installed extensions had actually transmitted private information to LinkedIn.
In Tuesday's ruling, Chhabria granted the plaintiffs permission to file an amended complaint, but said he doubts they can ever plausibly allege a genuine privacy violation, noting that users voluntarily install browser extensions, which by design share data with the sites they interact with.
Origins of "BrowserGate"
The cases followed an April report from a German group called Fairlinked, which accused LinkedIn of illegally searching users' computers. LinkedIn did not deny scanning for extensions but said in its motion to dismiss that it uses detection tools to spot automated scraping and bot activity, singling out the Estonian company Teamfluence, whose Chrome plug-in was found by a German court to violate LinkedIn's user agreement. LinkedIn noted that Teamfluence's founder sits on Fairlinked's board and characterized the BrowserGate report as a retaliatory campaign after his account was banned.
LinkedIn argued it only detects information that extensions openly expose to websites, calling that data public rather than private, and said its terms and privacy policy already disclose this practice to users.
What's next
Ganan's attorney, J.R. Howell, said the federal court only ruled on jurisdiction, not on whether LinkedIn's practices were lawful, and that he is weighing whether to refile in California state court, which has different standing rules, or appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Farrell's lawyers had not yet responded to a request for comment.
