A Canadian vibrator maker settles a $4 million class action privacy lawsuit

Mar 15 2017, 11:30 pm

A Canadian vibrator manufacturer is paying out millions to some of its unsatisfied users.

Standard Innovation Corp, the makers of the sex toy We-Vibe, has agreed to settle a US class action lawsuit for violating its users’ privacy.

The Ottawa-based company will be paying out $4 million to its users for accessing personal information through its app, which allowed couples to control sex toys remotely.

The company is also ordered to destroy any collected data and stop recording users’ information.

For those who are unaware, We-Vibe is an expensive vibrator that is able to pair with any smartphone using the company’s “We-Connect” app.

According to initial court documents from the lawsuit, which began in 2016, “Unbeknownst to its customers, however, Defendant designed We-Connect to (i) collect and record highly intimate and sensitive data regarding consumers’ personal We-Vibe use, including the date and time of each use and the selected vibration settings, and (ii) transmit such usage data—along with the user’s personal email address—to its servers in Canada.”

The US suit stated that this disregards consumer privacy rights and violated numerous state and federal laws.

We-Vibe

“Needless to say, the usage information collected by Standard Innovation through We-Connect is extraordinarily intimate and private,” wrote the plaintiff in court documents. “Standard Innovation collected individual-level usage information — often tied to users’ personally identifiable email addresses — and as a result… breached its customers’ trust, devalued their purchases… and violated federal and state law in the process.”

The court documents did not include information regarding Canadian users.

Might want to hold off on sending those long-distance vibes with your apps though.

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