Funko fans cry foul over online tracking

SEATTLE (CN) — A class of customers is accusing a collectible pop culture figurine company of illegally tracking, collecting and selling their private browsing activity.

Three users — Peter Dirksen, Aviva Copaken and Steven Beltran — say Funko gave them false assurance that they have meaningful control over what data its website shares with third parties through a banner allowing them to purportedly manage their cookie preferences. Cookies are small data blocks sent to and from a web browser to identify users.

“Defendant lulls users into a false sense of security, privacy and control while simultaneously enabling third parties to monitor, intercept, and transmit users’ online behavior in real time,” the plaintiff users write in the complaint. “Such conduct deprives users of control over their sensitive information and violates fundamental privacy protections.”

Funko is a brand that creates a variety of pop culture merchandise. It is most known for its Pop! Vinyl figures featuring licensed characters with large heads and small bodies.

The customers say Funko’s tracking tools collect detailed interaction and behavioral data from users before they can even interact with the cookie banner. This data includes webpages and products a user views, but also more personal information such as a user’s inferred interests, preferences, age and location, according to the customers.

The users even say the data Funko collects includes persistent identifiers that allow users to be recognized across browsing sessions, like their email addresses and approximate geolocation.

While Funko allows users to click a “reject all” button in the cookie banner, the customers say it doesn’t meaningfully prevent Funko from selling or sharing their sensitive information.

“Even after taking such actions, the website continues to utilize and deploy tracking tools which transmit users’ data to the advertising, social media and analytics companies that designed and operate the tracking tools,” the users say.

The users accuse Funko of deceiving users by indicating that they can reject all tracking and disable the sale or disclosure of their data through cookies, when in fact the website places tracking tools on users’ browsers and continues to use those tools even after a user rejects all tracking. They say Funko violated the federal Wiretap Act and multiple California privacy laws.

“Defendant not only facilitated and enabled the covert incorporation of tracking entities’ tracking tools into its website, but also, via its cookie banner and cookie settings, misrepresented its data sharing practices,” the users claim.

Under the federal Wiretap Act, users can sue if their electronic communication is intercepted, disclosed or intentionally used without consent.

The plaintiffs say they were never asked to consent to the interception, but rather falsely assured they could reject the tracking tools. For Wiretap Act violations, the users are seeking damages of $100 per day per violation or $10,000.

The users seek to represent a class of people who visited and interacted with the Funko website, whose activity was intercepted, disclosed and shared through the website’s tracking tools. The suit includes a subclass for California for the state-specific claims.

The Seattle-based firm Tousley Brain Stephens is representing the class of customers and the lawsuit was filed in federal court in Seattle on Friday.

Representatives for Funko and the customers did not respond to a request for comment before press time.