Papa John's Sued For 'Wiretap' Spying on Website Mouse Clicks, Keystrokes
Papa John's is being sued by a customer -- not for its pizza but for allegedly breaking the US Wiretap Act by snooping on the way he browsed the pie-slinger's website. From a report: The titan of greasy wheels is accused of falling foul of wiretapping rules by using so-called session replay software on its website. This software records and phones home everything a user does on the site, beyond what fetching pages and placing an order would submit, we're told. For instance, it tells Papa John's where the mouse is moved and clicked, and what's typed into the page, it's claimed [PDF]. This info can be used to figure out where users get stuck, bail out of a sale, get lost, and so on. Session replay tools have been a privacy concern due to their indiscriminate capturing of data, sometimes poor security, and failures to get user consent to track and store this data, not to mention having analysts going over your every move to see how they can optimize their webpages and boost sales. On the other hand, you may not see it as that much of a concern given all the other material data a website might have on you -- such as name, email and home address, date of birth, orders placed, payment details, etc etc.
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