Skims Class Action Accuses Brand of Using Meta Tech to ‘Wiretap’ and ‘Eavesdrop’

Meghan Hall
·3 min read

Is Skims skimming excess consumer data? Plaintiffs in a California class-action lawsuit think so.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the Northern District of California, alleges that Skims uses Meta Pixel technology—a tool that helps brands assess the efficacy of their advertisements— to enable “Meta to eavesdrop on [Skims] website visitors’ communications as they conduct searches for intimate wear products on the website without visitors’ consent.”

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Kim Kardashian‘s brand faces the complaint from lead plaintiffs Catherine Porchia and Mathilda Silverstein, both California residents who allege they purchased items from Skims this year or last year. Porchia and Silverstein allege that information about them was “intercepted in transit” by Meta without their consent while making these purchases and browsing Skims’ site.

The complaint alleges that Skims has been “aiding, agreeing with, employing, procuring, or otherwise enabling the wiretapping of the electronic communications of visitors to its website” by using Meta’s technology to capture, analyze and use consumer data without consent.

While most websites request consumers to authorize necessary and optional cookies, the complaint says Skims doesn’t go far enough to ensure consumers have control over their data or the cookies the company uses.

The plaintiffs claim that, because of the way the site is set up, visitors don’t have to accept the cookies presented to them in order to proceed onto the site. That, the complaint states, makes the “‘cookie banner’ a non-binding browsewrap.”

It further alleges that, even if a consumer does interact with the cookie banner, choosing to opt out of third-party targeting cookies, Skims “continues to share users’ personal browsing data and identifiers with Meta.”

Because of that, the plaintiffs go on to say, Skims “never properly obtains consent from its users to disclose their communications, and any consent allegedly obtained is meaningless and void.”

The plaintiffs say they harbor concerns over what Meta can do with the information it obtains on consumers from Skims’ alleged use of Meta technology.

They state that their activity on Skims’ website is highly personal and private because “names of products users search for and view reveal information that people generally keep private—such as the type of underwear people prefer to wear or whether the way the curves of their body are shaped is actually due to the aid of shapewear.”

The plaintiffs assert that when Meta receives that kind of information from Skims’ site, it can “pair event data with personally identifiable information so it can later retarget consumers on Facebook.”

Meta also has the capability to use the data for the benefit of other advertisers, the plaintiffs note in the complaint.

The plaintiffs allege that, because of this, Skims has violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act, which prohibits wiretapping and and spying on confidential information without consent. They seek $5,000 in damages for each member of the class.

And if Porchia and Silverstein actually see that kind of cash, Skims could be doling out millions.

The complaint estimates that class could have “hundreds of thousands of individuals” in it, which includes all California residents who entered a query into Skims’ search bar while in California.

A spokesperson for Skims denied the issues argued in the complaint filed by Porchia and Silverstein this week.

“Skims respects the privacy rights of all of its customers and visitors to its website, and has at all times complied with applicable law and its own privacy policy. We therefore deny the allegations set forth in this claim, and intend to fight them,” the spokesperson said. “We note that the firm who brought this claim has a history of identical frivolous actions against a large number of companies.”