Weather Channel app owners accused of selling data

Suit filed in California says privacy violated

LOS ANGELES — People relied on the most popular mobile weather app to track forecasts that determined whether they chose jeans over shorts and packed a parka or umbrella, but its owner used it to track their every step and profit off that information, Los Angeles prosecutors said Friday.

City Attorney Michael Feuer said the owner of The Weather Channel mobile app misled users who agreed to share their location information in exchange for personalized forecasts and alerts, and they instead unwittingly surrendered personal privacy when the company sold their data to third parties.

He filed suit against the app’s operator in Los Angeles County Superior Court to stop the practice. He said 80 percent of users agreed to allow access to their locations because disclosures on how the app uses geolocation data were buried within a 10,000-word privacy policy and not revealed when they downloaded the app.

“Think how Orwellian it feels to live in a world where a private company is tracking potentially every place you go, every minute of every day,” Feuer said. “If you want to sacrifice to that company that information, you sure ought to be doing it with clear advanced notice of what’s at stake.”

A spokesman for IBM Corp., which owns the app, said it has always been clear about the use of location data collected from users and will vigorously defend its “fully appropriate” disclosures.

Feuer said the app’s operators, TWC Product and Technology LLC, sold data to at least a dozen websites for targeted ads and to hedge funds that used the information to analyze consumer behavior.

The lawsuit seeks to stop IBM from the practice it calls “unfair and fraudulent” and seeks penalties of up to $2,500 for each violation. Any court decision would only apply to California.

Marketed as the “world’s most downloaded weather app,” The Weather Channel app claims approximately 45 million users a month, the lawsuit said.

Users who download the free app are asked whether to allow access to their location to “get personalized local weather data, alerts and forecasts.” It does not say how the app’s owner benefits from the information.

While disclosures may be included in the privacy policy, state law says “fine print alone can’t make good what otherwise has been made obscure,” Feuer said.

He said he learned about the sale of the private data from an article in The New York Times.

The lawsuit comes as companies, most notably Facebook and Google, are increasingly under fire for how they use people’s personal data. Both companies faced congressional hearings last year on privacy issues, which are likely to remain on lawmakers and regulators’ minds both nationally and in California.

Brian Melley The Associated Press Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said at a news conference Friday in Los Angeles that owners of The Weather Channel app misled users to think their location data would only be used for personalized forecasts and alerts.