Davis v. Meta Platforms, Inc.

District Court, D. Nevada·Decided July 3, 2024·No. 2:23-cv-01352·Unknown

Opinion

MATTHEW DAVIS, Case No.: 2:23-cv-01352-APG-BNW

Plaintiff Order Granting Meta’s Motion to Dismiss; Denying Meta’s Request for Judicial v. Notice; and Granting Meta’s Motions for Leave to File Supplemental Authority [ECF Nos. 18, 19, 30, 36] Defendant

Matthew Davis sues Meta Platforms, Inc. for violating the Drivers Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) on behalf of himself and a putative class of similarly situated individuals. The DPPA makes it “unlawful for any person knowingly to obtain or disclose personal information, from a motor vehicle record, for any use not permitted under the [statute].” 18 U.S.C. § 2722(a). Davis alleges that Meta violated the DPPA by collecting his personal information from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) website, which Davis alleges is a motor vehicle record under the DPPA. Meta moves to dismiss, arguing that Davis does not plausibly allege that the Nevada DMV website is a motor vehicle record, nor that the information Meta collected came from the Nevada DMV website. I grant Meta’s motion to dismiss because Davis does not plausibly allege that the Nevada DMV website is a motor vehicle record as defined by the DPPA nor that the information Meta collected came from the Nevada DMV’s website. Meta also requests I take judicial notice of its Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy, and Business Tools Terms, which can be found online. I deny this request because the links Meta provided for these items are their current web addresses and I cannot accurately and readily determine that these online policies have remained the same since the time of Davis’s alleged injury. I also deny Meta’s request that I consider its Cookies Policy to be incorporated by reference into the complaint because its Cookies Policy does not form the basis of Davis’s allegations. Finally, Meta moves for leave to file two opinions from similar cases as supplemental authority. I grant Meta leave to file these opinions as supplemental authority because there is

good cause as the plaintiffs in those cases brought similar DPPA claims against Meta. I. Background Davis visited the Nevada DMV website between 2022 and 2023 “to book appointments and conduct other private business with the Nevada DMV.” ECF No. 1 at 16. Davis used the same web browser to access the Nevada DMV website as he had used to access his personal Facebook account. Id. Davis alleges that when he “was navigating the Nevada DMV website, Meta obtained and used his personal information” by collecting both event data and cookies. Id. According to the complaint, Meta collected three kinds of event data: (1) PageView, (2) Microdata, and (3) Button Click. Id. at 7. PageView data allegedly “tells Meta which specific website URL [Davis] navigated to.” Id. at 8. Microdata allegedly tells Meta the title of the

webpage Davis navigated to and provides Meta with a brief description of what is contained on that page. Id. Button Click data allegedly “tells Meta if and exactly when [Davis] click[ed] on a particular button on a webpage, along with the text of that button.” Id. According to the complaint, Meta collected two different first-party cookies when Davis visited the Nevada DMV website. Id. at 16. First, Meta allegedly collected the “c_user” cookie. Id. “The c_user cookie . . . contains a consumer’s unencrypted Facebook ID.” Id. at 11-12. Davis alleges that “[a] Facebook ID allows anybody—not just Facebook—to identify the individual driver with a Facebook account” because if someone “types www.facebook.com/[FacebookID] . . . into a web browser, it will load that individual’s Facebook page.” Id. at 12. Second, Meta allegedly collected the “fr cookie.” Id. at 16. “The fr cookie contains, at least, an encrypted Facebook ID and browser identifier.” Id. at 13. Davis defines a first-party cookie as one that “is created by the website the user is visiting—i.e., https://dmv.nv.gov/platesdisabled.htm.” Id. at 13 (quotation omitted).

Davis alleges that Meta receives the event data and cookies through the Meta Tracking Pixel. Id. at 7, 11-13. Davis defines the Meta Tracking Pixel as a “tracking code” that automatically collects user data and sends it to Meta. Id. at 2, 6. He alleges that when he visited the Nevada DMV website “the DMV [was] host[ing] the Meta Tracking Pixel,” and he alleges that the Meta Tracking Pixel was integrated directly into the Nevada DMV website. Id. at 2, 6-7. He also alleges that the Meta Tracking Pixel is “surreptitiously install[ed]” on users’ web browsers when they visit Facebook.com, and that the Meta Tracking Pixel stays on the users’ browser for 90 days. Id. at 2. According to the complaint, when a user visits the Nevada DMV website, the c_user and fr cookies identifying that user, as well as the user’s event data, are sent to Meta through the

Meta Tracking Pixel. Id. at 14. Davis alleges that Meta collects this data from the Nevada DMV “to help it in its advertising efforts.” Id. at 17. Specifically, Davis alleges Meta uses this information to “deliver targeted advertisements to drivers on its social media platforms.” Id. at 16. Based on these allegations, Davis sues Meta for violating the DPPA. As explained in more detail below, he alleges that (1) the c_user and fr cookies contain personal information as defined by the DPPA, (2) the Nevada DMV website is a motor vehicle record as defined by the DPPA, and (3) Meta obtains the c_user and fr cookies from the Nevada DMV website, so the personal information they contain comes from a motor vehicle record. He brings the same claim on behalf of a putative class of similarly situated individuals, defining the putative class as “all persons in the United States who have Facebook and visited https://dmvnv.com/ or https://dmv.nv.gov/ after August 30, 2019.” Id. at 17, 19. Meta moves to dismiss all claims against it, arguing that Davis fails to state a claim or, in the alternative, that Meta collected the

data for a permissible purpose under the DPPA or did not possess the required mental state when it collected the data. II. Analysis a. Motion to Dismiss In considering a motion to dismiss, I take all well-pleaded allegations of material fact as true and construe the allegations in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Kwan v. SanMedica Int’l, 854 F.3d 1088, 1096 (9th Cir. 2017). However, I do not assume the truth of legal conclusions merely because they are cast in the form of factual allegations. Navajo Nation v. Dep’t of the Interior, 876 F.3d 1144, 1163 (9th Cir. 2017). A plaintiff must make sufficient factual allegations to establish a plausible entitlement to relief. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550

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Davis v. Meta Platforms, Inc., (D. Nev. 2024).

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