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Nearly as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning, the
recent theft of 6.5 million LinkedIn user passwords has
resulted in the filing of a class action lawsuit in a California
federal court. In her complaint, a LinkedIn premium subscriber
asserts claims on behalf of all LinkedIn users for breach of
implied and express contractual obligations, negligence and
violation of California's Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus.
& Prof. Code § 17200.
Although the attack affected the passwords of just over 5% of
LinkedIn's approximately 120 million users, plaintiff purports
to assert claims on behalf of all LinkedIn users. Although
plaintiff alleges classwide damages in excess of $5,000,000 (the
jurisdictional threshold for federal court jurisdiction over the
state law claims advanced in the complaint) it is unclear what
damages plaintiff alleges that the class actually sustained by
reason of merely losing passwords. Some commentators have
hypothesized that the propensity to use a single password for
multiple online accounts could result in losses where non-LinkedIn
accounts are accessed using an individual's LinkedIn
password. Proving that such losses have occurred,
however, would require highly individualized showings that would
likely preclude adjudicating plaintiff's claims as a class
action. Even less clear is what conceivable damages were
allegedly sustained by LinkedIn users whose passwords were not
stolen. Thus, as with most privacy class actions, damages
issues appear to pose the greatest obstacle to the success of the
claims against LinkedIn.
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