PointRoll Sued For Circumventing Privacy Settings

Texas resident Lourdes Villegas has sued ad company PointRoll and search giant Google for allegedly circumventing the no-tracking settings on the Safari browser.

While Google has been hit with several other lawsuits for allegedly tracking Safari users, Villegas appears to be the first Web user to sue Gannett's PointRoll for the potential privacy violations. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose (CA), accuses the companies of violating federal computer fraud laws and wiretap laws, as well as California state laws. Villegas is seeking class-action status. The litigation centers on a report published two weeks ago by researcher Jonathan Mayer, who found that Google, PointRoll, WPP's Media Innovation Group and Vibrant Media were dropping cookies on Safari users despite the fact that the browser blocks third-party cookies.