Bose Facing Lawsuit Over Spying Bluetooth Headphones
Bose has been accused of using its Bose Bluetooth headphones to collect and share user listening information without their knowledge. The lawsuit has been filed in Illinois back in April 2017.
Now U.S. District Court Judge Andrea Wood has decided tha claims that the company misled consumers about how the data would be used and shared holds up. But said that the consumers could not claim that Bose’s practice of collecting and sharing the data broke federal wiretapping law. She also threw out the claim that Bose’s actions violated the Illinois Eavesdropping Statute.
Bose markets the Connect app in conjunction with its Bluetooth headphones as a way to connect to smartphones, so it would function much like a remote control. Judge Wood preserved the argument that Bose misled consumers about how it used their data and shared it with Segment.io, a third-party data miner. It also preserved the claim that Bose unjustly enriched itself by collecting the data and misleading consumers about this practice.
Bose says that the app cannot access communications between an iPhone and Spotify because of protections placed on the apps by Apple. They also argued that it is permissible for them to not tell consumers that they are sharing the data.
A settlement is far away, but if you have purchased these headphones, keep an eye on developments.
The Bose Bluetooth Headphones Information Sharing Class Action Lawsuit is Zak v. Bose Corp., et al., Case No. 1:17-cv-02928, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
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