In a striking legal move, a California resident has taken action against a prominent real estate listing website for alleged privacy violations. Grace Lau filed a class-action complaint in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, on April 11, 2025, accusing Move, Inc. of unlawfully collecting and using personal data from its website visitors without consent.
The lawsuit centers around the use of tracking technologies on Move's website, realtor.com. According to the complaint, when users visit the site, trackers from third parties such as Microsoft and OpenX are installed on their browsers. These trackers allegedly collect sensitive information like IP addresses and device metadata without user consent or court authorization. Lau argues that this practice violates the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), which prohibits installing or using pen registers—devices that record routing or addressing information—without a court order.
Lau's complaint details how these trackers function as "pen registers" by capturing outgoing information such as IP addresses and unique identifiers. This data is then used to identify users across different platforms and target them with personalized advertisements. The plaintiff claims that this unauthorized data collection enriches Move through advertising revenue while compromising user privacy.
The lawsuit seeks to halt further privacy violations by Move and demands statutory damages for each violation under CIPA. Lau is also advocating for broader protections for California residents' privacy rights against such invasive practices.
Representing Grace Lau are attorneys L. Timothy Fisher and Emily A. Horne from Bursor & Fisher, P.A., located in Walnut Creek, CA. The case is presided over by Judge M. Arechiga under Case No. 25CV463381.