I’m Sorry, Motion Denied: Washington District Court Rejects Second Try at Class Action Suit Over Amazon Alexa’s Collection of Voice Data
In June 2022, a group of plaintiffs brought a putative class action against Amazon.com (“Amazon”) alleging the company violated several statutory and common law rights through its use of voice data collected through Alexa, its digital assistant software. After the court granted Amazon’s motion to dismiss, the named plaintiffs moved for leave to file an amended complaint. On March 29, 2023, in James Gray and Scott Horton v. Amazon.com, et. al., the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington denied the motion, concluding the plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint (PAC) failed to allege new material facts. The PAC alleged that Amazon failed to disclose to its consumers that it would use the data collected from the voice recordings made by Alexa devices for the purposes of targeted advertising. Accordingly, the plaintiffs asserted, as they had done previously, that Amazon: (1) breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing; (2) violated Washington’s Consumer Protection Act (CPA) and Personality Rights Act (PRA); and (3) violated common law privacy rights. The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ implied covenant claim because the PAC “merely repeat[ed] the same arguments the Court ha[d] already rejected.” For example, the court previously rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that Amazon’s terms and conditions failed to inform them of Amazon’s use of their...