A California resident has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against ATP Tour Inc., claiming the tennis organization shared personal information from its website users with Google and other third parties, despite assuring visitors they could reject nonessential data collection.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, alleges the ATP Tour website used embedded third-party tracking technology to collect data on what pages users visited, how they navigated the site, and the devices they were using. That information was reportedly shared with advertising and analytics partners to enable targeted marketing, according to the complaint.
Plaintiff Nathaniel Bee argues that visitors who selected the “essential cookies only” option were misled. “Even when users attempted to limit tracking, the defendant failed to prevent third parties from receiving data generated by users’ website communications,” the lawsuit states. The complaint claims this conduct violates California’s Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Invasion of Privacy Act, and several state advertising regulations.
Bee compared browsing on the ATP Tour website to attending a live tennis event in person. Just as in-person activities can reveal personal interests, he said, digital interactions on the website provide detailed behavioral insights. “Users reasonably expect that their online communications occur as part of their direct interaction with the defendant, not as a broadcast to unseen third parties,” the complaint says.
The lawsuit also names Comscore Inc., a company that provides data analytics and insights on consumer behavior, as another recipient of the information. According to the complaint, users have no way to verify whether ATP Tour honored their cookie preferences, and this lack of transparency prevents them from controlling the economic value of their personal information.
The proposed class covers all users nationwide who opted for limited cookies, with a specific subclass for California residents. ATP Tour users visit the site to access live scores, match coverage, player statistics, and other features, making the alleged data collection widespread.
Bee and the proposed class are represented by Raphael Janove of Janove PLLC. ATP Tour has not commented on the lawsuit, and legal counsel for the organization was not immediately available.
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