Web Tracking in Compliance With Massachusetts Wiretap Law (1)

Businesses that discreetly track online communication with their customers through popular advertising software don’t run afoul of the Massachusetts Wiretap Act, the state’s top court ruled Thursday.

“If the Legislature intends for the wiretap act’s criminal and civil penalties to prohibit the tracking of a person’s browsing of, and interaction with, published information on websites, it must say so expressly,” the Supreme Judicial Court opinion said.

The Wiretap Act, passed in the 1960s, makes it a crime to willfully intercept wire or oral communication. “We cannot conclude with any confidence that the Legislature intended ‘communication’ to extend so broadly as ...