Demand accuses Amazon to secretly track consumers through cell phones

Amazon.com was sued Wednesday by consumers who accused the retail giant of secretly tracking their movements through their cell phones and selling data that it collects.

According to a collective claim proposed in the Federal Court of San Francisco, Amazon obtained the “rear door access” to consumer phones by providing tens of thousands of application developers with code known as Amazon Ads SDK to integrate into their applications .

This supposedly allowed Amazon to collect a huge amount of time geolocation data on where they live, work and visit, reveal confidential information such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations and health concerns.
“Amazon has effectively made fingerprints and has correlated a lot of personal information about them completely without the knowledge and consent of consumers,” said the complaint.

The complaint was filed by Felix Kolotinsky of San Mateo, California, who said that Amazon compiled his personal information through the application “Speedtest by Ookla” on his phone.

He said that Amazon's conduct violated the California Criminal Law and a state law against access to the unauthorized computer, and seeks not specified damage for millions of Californians.

Amazon, based in Seattle, did not immediately respond to requests for comments. The plaintiff's lawyers did not immediately respond to additional comments requests.

People and regulators complain more and more that companies are trying to benefit from the information collected without consent from cell phones.

On January 13, the state of Texas sued Allstate for allegedly tracking drivers through cell phones, using the data to increase premiums or deny coverage, and sell the data to other insurers.

Allstate said that its data collection fully complies with all laws and regulations. Subsequently there have been at least eight similar private demands against Allstate.

The case is Kolotinsky V Amazon.com Inc et al, District Court of the United States, Northern District of California, No. 25-00931.