ComScore close to settling class action tracking suit

US — comScore has reached an agreement in principle to settle a class action lawsuit which accused the company of “improperly” obtaining personal information from computers.

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A recent court filing explained that Mike Harris and Jeff Dunstan, the principal plaintiffs in the lawsuit, had provided comScore with a draft settlement agreement, which the digital measurement firm had proposed edits too.

The expectation is that a full settlement agreement will be announced next month.

Harris and Dunstan first sued comScore in August 2011. They accused the firm of “secretly” bundling its tracking software with various other programmes, such as free screen savers or games, and alleged that the company exceeded the scope of a consumer’s consent to monitoring by intercepting phone numbers, social security numbers, usernames, passwords and credit card numbers, among other personal information.

ComScore has always denied the claims, and unsuccessfully sought to appeal against the decision to grant class action status to the lawsuit in April 2013.

Estimates put the size of the class – defined as “all individuals who have had, at any time since 2005, downloaded and installed comScore’s tracking software onto their computers via one of comScore’s third party bundling partners” – at up to a million people.

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