Privacy Lawsuit Against Comscore Awarded Class Action Status

Market research firm accused of breaching privacy

Analytics company comScore provides data on everything from smartphone marketshareto social network adoption, but those figures could come at a heavy cost to user privacy. That's the allegation set out in a lawsuit filed against the company in 2011; this week, the case was awarded class action status. Lawyers acting on behalf of two individuals claim that comScore surreptitiously and intrusively collects user information via tracking software before selling it on to third parties; the company's OSSProxy software is often installed on computers alongside other free downloads.