Nelson v. Reddit, Inc.

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last substantive update: August 28, 2026

Docket / citation: 25-CV-1470 JLS (AHG)

Summary

This is a February 17, 2026 United States District Court (S.D. Cal.) order denying Reddit, Inc.'s motion to dismiss a class action complaint alleging that a LiveRamp tracker on Reddit's website constitutes a pen register under CIPA. The court found the complaint plausibly alleges collection of IP and cookie data that may fall within CIPA's pen register definition and rejected several of Reddit's dismissal arguments at the pleading stage.

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

Plaintiff filed a class action complaint alleging CIPA violations based on a LiveRamp tracker; Defendant moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6); the Court considered briefing and supplemental authority and denied the motion to dismiss.

Reported Holding

The Court denied Defendant Reddit, Inc.’s motion to dismiss. The Court found the complaint plausibly alleges that the LiveRamp tracker on Reddit’s website can qualify as a pen register under CIPA § 638.50(b) and that the pleading is sufficient at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage. The Court rejected Defendant’s arguments (including that a communication must contain substantive content, that Reddit is exempt as a party, and that the rule of lenity compels dismissal) at the pleading stage.

What the Court Decided

The Court denied Reddit’s motion to dismiss the class action complaint, concluding that the plaintiff plausibly alleged that the LiveRamp Tracker captures users' IP addresses and cookie data and may qualify as a pen register under CIPA, and that the other defenses raised by Reddit were not sufficient to support dismissal at the pleading stage.

What the Court Did Not Decide

The Court did not resolve the merits of liability or damages, did not enter final judgment, and did not resolve factual disputes beyond the plausibility determination at the pleading stage. The Court also did not adopt or rely on Defendant’s requested judicial notice (denied as moot).

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

• LiveRamp third-party tracker
• HTTP requests / IP address collection
• browser cookies / cookie-based tracking
• third-party advertising identity graph
• LiveRamp tracker
• browser cookies
• IP address collection via HTTP requests
• cookies
• IP address collection
• web tracking / online advertising tracking

Third parties named or identified in tracked sources: LiveRamp, Reddit, Inc..

Statutes Invoked

• Cal. Penal Code §§ 638.50(b), 638.51(a); Cal. Penal Code § 637.2 (damages provision)
• Cal. Penal Code §§ 638.50(b), 638.51(a); Cal. Penal Code § 637.2
• Cal. Penal Code §§ 638.50(b), 638.51(a), 637.2

Claims Asserted

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

• California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) — Cal. Penal Code §§ 638.50(b), 638.51(a)
• Statutory damages provision — Cal. Penal Code § 637.2
• California Invasion of Privacy Act — Pen Register Act (Cal. Penal Code §§ 638.50(b), 638.51(a))
• Statutory damages claim under Cal. Penal Code § 637.2
• California Invasion of Privacy Act (Pen Register Act) § 638.51(a) (as defined by § 638.50(b))
• Statutory damages provision under Cal. Penal Code § 637.2 (pled in complaint)

What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators

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

• Nelson v. Reddit, Inc. — ORDER Denying Defendant Reddit, Inc.'s Motion to Dismiss Class Action Complaint (Document 26) — Justia Dockets & Filings · Tier A (Primary authority) · 2026-02-17
• ORDER Denying Defendant Reddit, Inc.'s Motion to Dismiss Class Action Complaint (Signed Feb 17, 2026) — Justia (U.S. District Court S.D. Cal.) · Tier A (Primary authority) · 2026-02-17
• ORDER Denying Defendant Reddit, Inc.'s Motion to Dismiss Class Action Complaint — Justia Dockets & Filings · Tier A (Primary authority) · 2026-02-17

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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