The Weather Channel App Sued Over Claims it Sold Location Data; The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office Claims App Has Repeatedly Violated Privacy of Consumers

The Los Angeles City Attorney's office issued a cloudy forecast with the possibility of civil penalties for the popular Weather Channel app on Friday, claiming it repeatedly violated the privacy of consumers. From a report: In a civil lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, city prosecutors allege that The Weather Channel app led users to believe that it would use location data to provide them with "personalized local weather data, alerts and forecasts" but instead transmitted that data to third parties. The 15-page suit seeks to stop TWC Product and Technology LLC, a subsidiary of IBM, from using consumers' information and seeks civil penalties up to $2,500 for each violation by the company. Prosecutors allege that the firm profited from that data for purposes entirely unrelated to weather or the app. Further reading: The Register; Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They're Not Keeping It Secret, and Several Popular Apps Share Data With Facebook Without User Consent.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

When can we expect the check.

[wolfheart111]

Sued on behalf of us... so that's our money right?

Long local on the 8's has cool and then they cut i

[Joe_Dragon]

Long local on the 8's has cool and then they cut it down. Also no weather scan HD

Re:

[FunkSoulBrother]

Yeah I don't know who didn't expect this, their website has rivaled your average local news affilliate in terms of terrible ads and 3rd party Javascript for years

Re: No Surprise

[sound+vision]

I couldnt get TWCs web site to load in Firefox for about 4 months this year, even after disabling Adblock and allowing all scripts. I am assuming they fixed it but I have long since replaced my bookmark with Ventusky. I don't look at the forecasts ever but it's 100x better for real-time weather data. And it still would be, even if you had to click through fifty One Weird Tricks to get to it.

Illegal in Washington State

[WillAffleckUW]

We have strong constitutional rights of privacy here.

Wonder if I should give the State Attorney General a call?

Sure, sure

[93 Escort Wagon]

Like I'm going to believe THAT.

Next the LA Attorney's office will be claiming that the on-air talent for the Weather Channel weren't actually involved in the design of LL Bean's Weather Channel outerwear!

pay

[bigtreeman]

it's alright to use personal data so long as there is agreement before using and payment for use.

TWC? Utterly useless.

[TigerPlish]

I ditched TWC app many years ago, when it was obvious each version was worse than the previous. For a while it was all crashola. I moved to Weather Underground's app.

Re: TWC? Utterly useless.

[macwhiz]

TWC owns Weather Underground. Both are owned by IBM, at least as far as the online side goes. IBM is slowly killing WU and pushing people to TWC services.

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[andymadigan]

I was disappointed when this was pointed out in the comments on Ars. I've been using Weather Underground for years and found it very useful, but I'd rather not have my every move sold to hedge funds. I disabled all location services and background app refresh for Weather Underground, and I've started training myself into using Dark Sky instead.

Re:

[q4Fry]

I really like Dark Sky's future lows/highs display with the series of bars.

how do they know?

[renegade600]

the weather channel is embedded in so many different webpages, operating systems, and non-weather apps that you gave permission to share data with, I am wondering how do they know this is a weather channel app problem?

Fuck IBM!

[SpzToid]

Owner of The Weather Channel.

Whatever reputation once held is long gone now.

Can't prove harm, will be tossed

[gumpish]

This will just get tossed by the judge for the same reason almost all privacy lawsuits that don't involve leaked footage of a naked celebrity are dismissed. The plaintiff can't PROVE they were harmed. Which apparently means the perp gets a freebie. That's some legal system we've got...