Amazon accused of secretly tracking consumer movements via cellphones

Published 29/01/2025, 17:58
© Reuters.

Investing.com -- Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) is facing a lawsuit filed by consumers who allege the retail behemoth has been secretly tracking their movements through their cellphones and monetizing the data it collects, according to a report by Reuters.

The class action lawsuit was proposed in a San Francisco federal court on Wednesday. The suit claims that Amazon obtained covert access to consumers’ phones by supplying tens of thousands of app developers with a piece of code known as Amazon Ads SDK, which they could embed in their applications.

This code, the lawsuit alleges, allowed Amazon to gather a large volume of timestamped geolocation data. This data provided Amazon with information about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, potentially revealing sensitive details such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations, and health concerns.

The complaint stated, "Amazon has effectively fingerprinted consumers and has correlated a vast amount of personal information about them entirely without consumers’ knowledge and consent."

Felix Kolotinsky, a resident of San Mateo, California, filed the complaint. He alleges that Amazon collected his personal information through the "Speedtest by Ookla" app on his phone.

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