Judge Dismisses 'BrowserGate' Lawsuits Against LinkedIn

A U.S. District Court judge has dismissed two class-action lawsuits against LinkedIn over the company's practice of scanning users' browser extensions, as Ars Technica first reported. Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted the motion to dismiss, ruling that plaintiffs Nicholas Farrell and Jeff Ganan failed to establish standing.

According to reporting from Ars Technica, Judge Chhabria found that neither plaintiff adequately alleged they had installed extensions that conveyed private information to LinkedIn. While Farrell claimed to have extensions installed, the judge noted he did not allege that any specific extension revealed private data. Ganan, meanwhile, did not allege he had any extensions installed at all. Chhabria wrote that identifying hypothetical categories of private information is insufficient to meet the legal requirement for concrete harm.

LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary, does not deny scanning browsers to identify extensions, noting in its privacy policy that it uses cookies and similar technologies to collect data on browser add-ons. The company told the court it uses these detection systems to identify automated scraping and bot activity that could threaten the platform's integrity. LinkedIn specifically cited Teamfluence, an Estonian software company founded by CEO Steven Morell, as a group that traffics in scraping.

The controversy, dubbed "BrowserGate," followed a report by Fairlinked, a German advocacy group linked to Teamfluence. A German tribunal previously ruled that Teamfluence software violated LinkedIn's User Agreement.

J.R. Howell, the attorney representing Ganan and Fairlinked, stated that the court did not adjudicate whether LinkedIn's surveillance practices were lawful. Howell is currently evaluating whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit or bring the claims in California state court.