Krzyzek v. OpenX Techs., Inc.

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last substantive update: September 18, 2026

Docket / citation: No. 25-CV-05588-SI

Summary

A Northern District of California judge largely denied OpenX's motion to dismiss in Krzyzek v. OpenX, allowing claims under CIPA (including § 631(a) and a pen-register provision) and federal ECPA § 2511, as well as an intrusion upon seclusion claim, to proceed to discovery; unjust enrichment was dismissed with leave to amend. The court found plaintiffs' allegations of cross-site tracking and deanonymization sufficient at the pleading stage but did not decide the merits.

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

Plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging cross-site tracking by an OpenX tracking pixel and related identity-resolution activities; OpenX moved to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6); the district court issued an order largely denying the motion and the case is proceeding toward discovery.

Reported Holding

The court largely denied defendant OpenX's motion to dismiss, allowing claims for intrusion upon seclusion, a CIPA wiretapping claim under § 631(a), a CIPA pen register claim under § 638.51, and a federal ECPA claim under 18 U.S.C. § 2511 to proceed; the unjust enrichment claim was dismissed with leave to amend.

What the Court Decided

At the pleading stage the court found plaintiffs had alleged sufficiently invasive and deanonymizing tracking practices to establish Article III standing and to state claims for intrusion upon seclusion, CIPA § 631(a), CIPA § 638.51, and ECPA § 2511, and therefore denied nearly all of OpenX's Rule 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) challenges.

What the Court Did Not Decide

The court did not resolve the merits of the underlying privacy or statutory claims, including whether the alleged conduct ultimately meets the 'highly offensive' standard or whether the collected data constitute 'contents' for ECPA purposes on the merits; those issues remain for later proceedings and discovery.

Significance

Generally viewed as plaintiff-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

• tracking pixel
• identity resolution (identity graph)
• cross-site tracking
• targeted advertising

Third parties named or identified in tracked sources: OpenX Technologies.

Statutes Invoked

• Cal. Penal Code § 631(a); Cal. Penal Code § 638.51; 18 U.S.C. § 2511; Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.99.80(c)

Claims Asserted

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

• intrusion upon seclusion
• California Penal Code § 631(a) (CIPA wiretapping claim)
• California Penal Code § 638.51 (CIPA pen register-type claim)
• 18 U.S.C. § 2511 (ECPA)
• unjust enrichment

What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators

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. 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

• CROSS SITE TRACKING SURVIVES: Data Broker Pixel Case Heads To Discovery Under CIPA And ECPA — CIPAWorld · Tier D (Industry data) · 2026-02-03

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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