Oracle hit by legal claim it breaches privacy of billions

Oracle is facing a new class action which could have repercussions around the world, and, the plaintiffs hope, ultimately force the tech giant to halt its global adtech system.

Dr Johnny Ryan, senior fellow of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and a long-term critic of the global adtech system, is one of three class representatives in a new lawsuit against Oracle in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Through its numerous divisions, including BlueKai, Datalogix, AddThis, and OnRamp, Oracle is a major player in the adtech industry. It has claimed to have amassed data on 5 billion people, and generates $42.4bn (£36bn) in annual revenue.

Oracle data-collection systems are said to gather highly detailed personal information, including name, home address, email, purchases online and also in the real world, physical movements, income, interests and political views. For example, one Oracle database included a record of a German man who used a prepaid debit card to place a €10 bet on an esports betting site.

Dr Ryan and the two other plaintiffs, Michael Katz-Lacabe and Dr Jennifer Golbeck, insist they are acting on behalf of worldwide Internet users who have been subject to Oracle’s privacy violations. They are represented by Lieff Cabraser.

Dr Ryan said: “Oracle has violated the privacy of billions of people across the globe. This is a Fortune 500 company on a dangerous mission to track where every person in the world goes, and what they do. We are taking this action to stop Oracle’s surveillance machine.”

Oracle also co-ordinates a global trade among data broker firms through the Oracle Data Marketplace.

The complaint against Oracle alleges privacy violations under Californian Law, the Federal Wiretap Act, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment.

ICCL also has active litigation against big technology and the online tracking industry in Irish, Belgian, and German courts.

In May, it released a new report which claimed that the engine room of the adtech industry – realtime bidding (RTB) – tracks and shares what consumers view online and their real-world location 178 trillion times a year in Europe and the US.

It revealed that on average, a person in the US has their online activity and location exposed 747 times every day by the RTB industry, This is more than double the figure for Europe, where RTB exposes people’s data 376 times a day.