Felsen et al. v. The Vanguard Group, Inc.
Summary
Plaintiffs allege third-party tracking disclosed brokerage activity from Vanguard’s website and app. The court sustained standing and state wiretap claims while dismissing federal wiretap and California constitutional/common-law privacy claims without prejudice. ([cases.justia.com](https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/pennsylvania/paedce/2%3A2025cv02359/637300/31/0.pdf?ts=1789662610))
Litigation Status
Procedural Posture
Partial grant and partial denial of Vanguard’s Rule 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) motion addressing the amended complaint. ([docs.justia.com](https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/pennsylvania/paedce/2%3A2025cv02359/637300/31))
Reported Holding
Plaintiffs adequately pleaded standing; WESCA and CIPA claims survived. Federal and California constitutional/common-law privacy claims were dismissed without prejudice. ([docs.justia.com](https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/pennsylvania/paedce/2%3A2025cv02359/637300/31))
What the Court Decided
Financial-search and trading information supported standing and communication-content allegations. California law governed CIPA claims; privacy-notice consent could not be resolved on the pleadings. ([docs.justia.com](https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/pennsylvania/paedce/2%3A2025cv02359/637300/31))
What the Court Did Not Decide
Final liability, actual consent, and whether the app-security representation independently supported standing. Conceded CIPA Clause One and equitable-relief theories were not addressed. ([cases.justia.com](https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/pennsylvania/paedce/2%3A2025cv02359/637300/31/0.pdf?ts=1789662610))
Significance
Neutral / mixed significance. Characterizations of significance describe how the matter has generally been discussed in tracked public sources; individual holdings are often narrow, procedural, or fact-specific, and this page does not state or imply broader holdings than the sources support.
What This Page Does and Does Not Say
This page reports what our tracked public sources say about this matter — including, where identified, the procedural posture (for example, a ruling on a motion to dismiss is not a final merits decision). It does not report legal conclusions beyond those sources, does not predict outcomes, and does not constitute legal advice.
Technologies at Issue
- LinkedIn Insight Tag
- Google Analytics tracking code
- Meta Pixel
- Google Analytics
Third parties named or identified in tracked sources: LinkedIn Corporation, Google LLC, Meta Platforms, Inc..
Statutes Invoked
- Federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.; Pennsylvania WESCA, 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5701 et seq.; CIPA, Cal. Penal Code §§ 631 and 632
- 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.; 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5701 et seq.; Cal. Penal Code §§ 631 and 632
Claims Asserted
- Federal Wiretap Act
- Pennsylvania WESCA
- CIPA §§ 631 and 632
- California constitutional privacy
- California common-law privacy
- CIPA § 631
- CIPA § 632
- California common-law invasion of privacy
What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators
California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) is an all-party consent statute with a private right of action; Federal Wiretap Act (ECPA Title I) is a one-party consent statute with a private right of action. Consent standard and private enforceability are the structural features that most shape where website tracking claims are filed and how they are valued.
For operators using similar technologies, the recurring factual questions in matters like this one are whether advertising pixels transmit page URLs or hashed form data before a consent choice; what page URLs and query strings analytics tools share with third parties. Our scanner tests these behaviors empirically.
Because this matter is pending, anything reported here is procedural — allegations and interim rulings, not final determinations.
Detection of a similar technology on a website is an informational risk indicator, not a legal conclusion, and nothing in this section is legal advice.
Related Intelligence
Sources
- Felsen et al. v. The Vanguard Group, Inc. — Memorandum and Opinion
- Felsen v. The Vanguard Group, Inc. — Memorandum on Website-Tracking Claims
- Felsen v. The Vanguard Group, Inc.
- Felsen et al. v. The Vanguard Group, Inc. — Memorandum
About This Page
Publisher: Inspection-Ready Institute, Inc. (DBA Crandall Consulting), an independent website compliance and risk consultancy. We are not a law firm and nothing on this page is legal advice.
How this content is produced: Facts are extracted from publicly available sources — court and government materials, recognized legal press, professional analysis, and industry reports — by our litigation intelligence engine, stored with full source provenance, and rendered from the database. Risk guidelines are computed by a deterministic formula, never by an AI model directly. See the full methodology.
Limitations: Counts labeled "Tracked" reflect matters identified in our source set and are not official court statistics. We report what courts decided and did not decide; we do not predict outcomes.
Corrections: If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate, contact us via the contact page and we will review the underlying sources promptly.
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