The State of California is suing The Weather Company (TWC) for allegedly misleading users about why their extremely precise location data was needed.
The lawsuit claims TWC told its users that it collects data to personalize alerts and forecast but in reality, uses the data to profit from the selling of location data to advertisers, according to the lawsuit.
“TWC has then profited from that data, using it and monetizing it for purposes entirely unrelated to weather or the Weather Channel App,” the lawsuit said.“In fact, unbeknownst to its users, TWC’s core business is amassing and profiting from user location data.”
Just last month, the New York times reported 75 companies – including the Weather Channel app – misled consumers about data collection and selling location data to advertisers which included second-by-second-whereabouts, and location data down to the street a user was on.
The Weather company has denied the allegations.
“The Weather Company has always been transparent with use of location data; the disclosures are fully appropriate, and we will defend them vigorously,” a spokesperson from IBM, the company which owns TWC, told Threatpost. TWC has yet to respond to SC Media for comment.
