California is once again at the center of the national debate over data privacy. Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer has filed a lawsuit against TWC Product and Technology, an IBM subsidiary and operator of the Weather Channel smartphone app, for “covertly mining the private data of users and selling the information to third parties, including advertisers.”
The Weather Channel app, branded through its namesake cable television channel, is a mobile phone application that provides users with real-time weather information and forecasts. It was the most downloaded weather application from 2014 to 2017.
The lawsuit claims TWC “has deceptively used its Weather Channel app to amass its users’ private, personal geolocation data—tracking minute details about its users’ locations throughout the day and night, all the while leading users to believe that their data will only be used to provide them with ‘personalized local...