On August 6, 2025, in Mitchener v. CuriosityStream, Inc., No. 25-cv-01471-NW, 2025 WL 2272413 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2025), Judge Noël Wise of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed with prejudice a putative class action alleging that CuriosityStream's use of TikTok tracking software on its website violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act's (CIPA) "trap and trace" provisions (Cal. Penal Code § 638.50). The ruling follows Judge Wise's June 24, 2025, decision in Kishnani v. Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., which dismissed a substantively identical complaint brought by the same plaintiffs' counsel, Tauler Smith LLP. The Kishnani matter is currently on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, but Judge Wise declined to delay ruling in Mitchener pending the outcome of that appeal.
The plaintiff alleged that CuriosityStream embedded TikTok tracking code on its website that "fingerprinted" visitors, gathered device and browser information, and transmitted this data to TikTok without user consent, allowing for potential deanonymization of users. According to the amended complaint, this tracking technology functioned as a prohibited "trap and trace device" by capturing dialing, routing, addressing or signaling information likely to identify the source of a communication.
The court held that the plaintiff's allegations were too generalized to establish Article III standing. The plaintiff did not allege when or how often he visited the site, what information he provided, what data was actually collected about him or any facts showing that he was deanonymized. The court determined merely asserting that "basic contact information" or IP address data was collected was insufficient to implicate a legally protected privacy interest under Ninth Circuit precedent.
The court also concluded that the software did not meet the statutory definition of a "trap and trace device." By definition, such a device captures information about a communication's source "but not the contents of a communication." Here, the plaintiff alleged the TikTok code could collect biographical information such as name, date of birth or address if entered on the site. If true, that would constitute content, removing the software from the statutory definition. Conversely, if only metadata such as IP addresses was collected, the plaintiff would lack any reasonable expectation of privacy and thus suffer no invasion of a protected interest. Either way, the claim could not proceed.
Finding that no amendment could cure the standing defect or alter the statutory analysis, the court dismissed the case with prejudice. The decision adds to a growing body of district and state court rulings rejecting nearly identical "TikTok pixel" CIPA claims brought by the same plaintiffs' counsel, underscoring the narrow scope of CIPA's trap-and-trace provisions and the high bar for alleging concrete privacy harms in federal court.
While it remains to be seen how the Ninth Circuit will address the appeal in Kishnani and whether other courts will follow suit, Mitchener contributes to a series of recent decisions limiting the reach of CIPA's trap-and-trace provisions in the context of online tracking technologies.
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