Miami, FL: The maker of the hugely popular game app Pokemon Go, is facing a proposed unfair business practices class action lawsuit over allegations that its terms of service contract forces players to provide their personal and private information to the company in order to use the app.
Filed by a plaintiff in Florida, the lawsuit asserts that the plaintiff unwittingly granted Niantic, the Pokemon Go Developer, “perpetual” and “irrevocable” expansive rights to, amongst other things, collect his user data, when he began downloading the game.
In order to use Pokémon Go, players must agree to the Terms of Service and Niantic creates a user’s Pokémon Go account by allegedly extracting data from the gamer’s Google, Facebook, or other pre-existing third-party account certain personal information.
According to the plaintiff, he downloaded Pokémon Go onto his phone and in so doing, unwittingly provided Niantic with his private information under an irrevocable license.
The license allegedly gives Niantic the right to retain and share users’ data, including players’ location, recent web history, search terms and user messages, in perpetuity.
Consequently, “unsuspecting individuals, including [plaintiff], have downloaded and used ‘Pokémon Go’ … and [have] and will provide Niantic with information,” the lawsuit states.
According to the complaint, “The terms of service provide that [plaintiff] has granted to Niantic a perpetual and irrevocable license, which will survive cancelation, discontinuation or termination of [plaintiff’s] access to or use of Niantic’s services,” the plaintiff states, adding “such cancelation, discontinuation or termination may occur upon Niantic’s option, at its sole discretion, and at any time and without notice to plaintiff.”
Further, the suit asserts that Niantic reserves the right to unilaterally alter or terminate any or all of the separate parts of the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Because of this, the suit claims Niantic “is not bound by the Pokémon GO Terms of Service or the Pokémon GO Privacy Policy, and may perform if it wants to.” The plaintiff claims Niantic unfairly asserts the right to terminate a player’s account at the company’s sole discretion and refuses to refund virtual goods which the player uses in the game.
The suit is seeking relief under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and a declaratory judgment that the Niantic Pokémon Go Terms of Service and the Pokémon Go Privacy Policy are illusory and therefore the contract is unenforceable.
The plaintiff is represented by Morgan L. Weinstein of Van Ness Law Firm PLC. The Pokémon Go Terms of Service Lawsuit is Case No. 50-2016-CA-008330, in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit for Palm Beach County, Florida.
