Bose is accused of recording, selling audio information
Massachusetts headphone and speaker giant Bose is facing its second high-profile lawsuit in as many months, with a new case claiming the company’s app secretly records audio its customers listen to and sends the data to third-party companies.
In a lawsuit filed in Illinois District Court that is seeking class action status, Chicago resident Kyle Zak accuses Bose of “secretly collecting, transmitting, and disclosing its customers’ private music and audio selections to third parties.”
“Defendant’s conduct demonstrates a wholesale disregard for consumer privacy rights and violates numerous state and federal laws,” the complaint alleges.
In the lawsuit, Zak says Bose tracks and records specific songs, podcasts and other audio through an app meant to serve as a remote control for several models of headphones, including the QuietComfort 35, QuietControl 30, SoundLink Color II and others. The QuietComfort 35 and QuietControl 30 are Bose’s flagship noisecanceling and wireless headphones. The complaint says the audio customers listen to in private could be sold to marketers looking to put customers in an age bracket or other category and can be immensely revealing. “A person that listens to Muslim prayer services through his headphones or speakers is very likely a Muslim, a person that listens to the Ashamed, Confused, and In the Closet Podcast i s very likely a homosexual in need of a support system,” the complaint says. “None of Defendant’s customers could have ever anticipated that these types of music and audio selections would be recorded and sent to, of all people, a third party data miner for analysis.” The complaint says Bose, which is privately held and based in Framingham, has violated the federal Wiretap Act as well as local Illinois laws. The suit is seeking to become a class action lawsuit, on behalf of customers who have bought Bose headphones. Last month, high-profile California headphone startup Doppler Labs accused Bose of surreptitiously gaining access to its confidential technology and then using it for its own product, infringing on Doppler’s trademark in the process. That suit is still ongoing. Forbes estimates that Bose posted 2015 revenue of approximately $3.5 billion.