California Residents Can Sue AOL in California
Thanks to a ruling by a federal appellate court on Friday, 16th January, California residents can now sue AOL over invasion of privacy in California rather than 'in courts of Virginia' as stipulated by AOL.On July 31, 2006, AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc, placed some 20 million search enquiries by 658,000 AOL members on a public website. The information posted included personal information as well as addresses, credit card numbers, phone numbers, social security numbers, and passwords.
According to a class action suit filed on behalf of members who had their information posted, their "personal struggles with various highly personal issues, including sexuality, mental illness, recovery from alcoholism, and victimization from incest, physical abuse, domestic violence, adultery, and rape," were made public.
The subsequent class action suit was filed in Oakland, CA, 2 months after the incident, alleging violations of federal electronic privacy law. However, Time Warner was able to convince the court that the suit should be thrown out because AOL's customer agreements stipulate that all legal disputes go through Virginia courts.
The new ruling on Friday reverses that decision, enables the class action to proceed, and allows affected California residents to sue AOL in California.
