Khamooshi v. Politico LLC

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last substantive update: October 10, 2026

Docket / citation: 24-cv-07836-SK

Summary

A law firm report describes dismissal of the amended complaint in Khamooshi v. Politico LLC, a putative class action alleging that third-party technologies on politico.com collected identifying and device information supporting a CIPA pen register claim. Applying the Ninth Circuit’s Popa decision, the district court found the allegations insufficient to establish a concrete privacy injury for Article III standing.

Litigation Status

Status, direction, and weight describe how tracked public sources characterize this matter as of our last review — they are informational classifications, not legal assessments.

Procedural Posture

Putative class action filed in September 2024; after an initial dismissal for lack of standing, plaintiffs amended their complaint to add categories of allegedly disclosed information. The court dismissed the amended complaint for lack of standing.

Reported Holding

Applying Popa v. Microsoft Corporation, the court held that allegations concerning collection of device type, browser type, and device fingerprints did not identify embarrassing, invasive, or otherwise private information sufficient to establish a concrete Article III privacy injury.

What the Court Decided

The court dismissed the amended complaint for lack of Article III standing because the alleged data collection did not establish a concrete privacy injury.

What the Court Did Not Decide

The reported dismissal did not resolve whether the alleged third-party technologies satisfied the substantive elements of the CIPA pen register claim.

Significance

Generally viewed as defense-favorable. 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

• device type detection
• browser type detection
• device fingerprinting
• IP address collection
• Third-party website technologies
• Device fingerprinting

Statutes Invoked

• Cal. Penal Code § 638.51 (CIPA pen register provision) — all-party consent · private right of action
• California Invasion of Privacy Act, Cal. Penal Code § 638.51

Claims Asserted

Claims identified in tracked public sources; pleadings may include additional or amended claims.

• California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) pen register claim (Cal. Penal Code § 638.51)
• related privacy/wiretapping claims (as pled)
• CIPA pen register claim under Cal. Penal Code § 638.51

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. Consent standard and private enforceability are the structural features that most shape where website tracking claims are filed and how they are valued.

The reported outcome direction at the standing stage reflects how tracked sources characterize the ruling; such rulings are often narrow, posture-specific, and fact-bound rather than broad statements of law.

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

• Court Applies Popa to Dismiss CIPA Pen Register Claim for Lack of Article III Standing — Inside Privacy · Tier C (Professional analysis) · 2025-10-23
• Court Applies Popa to Dismiss CIPA Pen Register Claim for Lack of Article III Standing — Covington & Burling — Inside Class Actions · Tier C (Professional analysis) · 2025-10-23

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.

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