TikTok Inc.

Plaintiffs in this data privacy class action are users of the social-media app TikTok who allege that the TikTok app wrongfully collected their personal data through its “in-app browser.” While the TikTok app is free to download, it collects data on users’ interests and preferences through their interactions with videos, and uses that data to sell targeted ads to third party businesses. These ads appear as videos in the users’ feed that include links to the advertiser’s website or other point of sale. In addition, users who have at least one thousand followers can add links to external websites on their personal profiles, a feature that influencers and businesses often use to direct viewers to their brands and products.

However, when a user taps on one of the links inside of the app, the webpage opens directly in the app via an “in-app browser” rather than through a separate web browser on the users’ device, such as Google Chrome or Safari. As alleged, TikTok’s in-app browser is unique in that the TikTok app did not, as of August 2022, give users the opportunity to re-load the page in their device’s default browser. As detailed in the reporting by software engineer Felix Krause in August 2022, the TikTok app injects lines of JavaScript code into third party websites that users access through the in-app browser. This code, added when the browser renders the websites on the users’ device, creates new commands that can record and copy users’ interactions while browsing, including their keyboard inputs and taps on elements such as buttons, links, and images.

Following Krause’s posts, the individual cases were filed between November 2022 and April 2023 in judicial districts across the country. In April 2023, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered that these “in-app browser cases” should be transferred to the Northern District of Illinois. On March 15, 2024, the Court appointed KTMC partner Tyler Graden to serve on the Plaintiffs Steering Committee overseeing the consolidated litigation.

On April 9, 2024, Plaintiffs filed their Master Consolidated Complaint, alleging that TikTok and its affiliates’ actions violated the federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510 et seq., and the wiretapping, data-privacy, and consumer-protection laws of multiple states on behalf of one nationwide and four state-specific classes of similarly situated users. Defendants moved to dismiss which, on October 1, 2024, the Court denied in part. The case is now in discovery.