LinkedIn Stuck With Three Lawsuits Over Online Data Tracking

LinkedIn Corp. must face three related lawsuits alleging it collected the sensitive information of visitors to several health-related websites without their consent in violation of California privacy laws.

The individual plaintiffs in two of the proposed class actions adequately pleaded claims of invasion of privacy under the California Constitution and violations of section 632 of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, Judge Edward J. Davila of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said Oct. 10. The plaintiff in a third lawsuit adequately pleaded the same invasion-of-privacy claim.

Davila also granted Meta Platforms Inc.‘s motion to sever claims against it in a fourth related lawsuit, sending those claims to another court in the Northern District of California for consolidation with In re Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation. He then dismissed the remaining claims in the fourth lawsuit, which targeted LinkedIn and co-defendant Spring Fertility Holdings LLC, with leave to amend.

He also dismissed the claims in all of the lawsuits under section 631 of the CIPA.

The lawsuits involved the use of a LinkedIn online tracking tool, the “Insight Tag,” on the websites of four health-related entities: ReflexMD, a provider of Semaglutide prescriptions; CityMD, a provider of urgent-care services; Headway, a provider of mental-health services; and Spring Fertility, a provider of fertility treatments.

LinkedIn argued that the complaints should be dismissed because the plaintiffs consented to its practices and failed to adequately allege its intent to use their data for its own purposes as opposed to those of the health websites, but Davila disagreed.

Although LinkedIn adequately disclosed to users that its Insight Tag tool would track their data from third-party websites, Davila said it wasn’t clear at this stage of the litigation whether the plaintiffs had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information that was disclosed.

Given that uncertainty, the company’s disclosures weren’t enough to show that the plaintiffs consented to the alleged conduct, he said.

Intent

LinkedIn argued that its agreement with website operators using the Insight Tag—which required operators to agree not to share sensitive data—showed that it didn’t intend to invade the plaintiffs’ privacy, but Davila said the issue turned on factual questions that couldn’t be resolved at this early stage.

“The question of intent should be considered on a more-developed record,” he said.

The plaintiffs’ claims under section 632 of the CIPA, the eavesdropping provisions of the act, survived dismissal because they alleged facts sufficient to show that their communications with the websites were confidential, Davila said.

The invasion-of-privacy claims survived because the plaintiffs adequately pleaded that they had a legally protected privacy interest and a reasonable expectation of privacy in their communications, and that LinkedIn’s conduct was “highly offensive,” he said.

Davila dismissed the fourth lawsuit because the plaintiff in that case consented to the data disclosure by agreeing to the Spring Fertility cookies policy, he said.

He also set a status conference for Oct. 23 to discuss consolidation of the lawsuits.

The cases that survived dismissal are L.B. v. LinkedIn Corp., N.D. Cal., No. 5:24-cv-06832, order 10/10/25, J.S. v. Spring Fertility Holdings LLC, N.D. Cal., No. 5:24-cv-07374, order 10/10/25, and V.R. v. LinkedIn Corp., N.D. Cal., No. 5:24-cv-07399, order 10/10/25. The case that was dismissed is J.P. v. LinkedIn Corp., N.D. Cal., No. 5:24-cv-07586, order 10/10/25.