Variety Media LLC v. Superior Court

Published by Crandall Consulting · Informational litigation intelligence · Last substantive update: August 23, 2026

Summary

The Parker Poe client alert reports that an amended California SB 690 would remove private-party standing to sue under Penal Code section 638.51 for pen-register/trap-and-trace claims tied to websites, online applications, and mobile applications, with a limited two-year retroactivity window. The bill has passed committees unanimously so far and now awaits action in Assembly Appropriations, full Assembly floor votes, possible Senate concurrence, and the governor's decision before the August 31, 2026 deadline; passage is not yet certain.

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

SB 690 has cleared several committees and floor votes without recorded opposition and currently sits in the Assembly Appropriations Committee; a Senate concurrence vote and governor's action are still required before the August 31, 2026 constitutional deadline.

What the Court Did Not Decide

The pending Court of Appeal case (Variety Media LLC v. Superior Court) has not yet been decided; the article identifies that decision as potentially resolving whether website technology qualifies as a pen register under Penal Code section 638.51.

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

• cookies
• pixels
• chatbots
• session-replay
• website tracking

Statutes Invoked

• Cal. Penal Code §§ 631, 632, 632.7, 637.2, 638.50, 638.51

Claims Asserted

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

• Pen register / trap-and-trace claims under Penal Code section 638.51
• Wiretap / eavesdropping theories under Penal Code sections 631 and 632

What This Matter May Mean for Website Operators

For operators using similar technologies, the recurring factual questions in matters like this one are when session recording begins relative to consent and whether input masking covers every field; whether chat transcripts or typing previews transit a vendor's servers before the visitor presses send; 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

• Amended California Bill Would Narrow Litigants' Website Tracking Claims Under California Invasion of Privacy Act — Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP · Tier C (Professional analysis) · 2026-07-08

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.