Microsoft's 'Misconduct' Not Disclosed in Qualtrics' Privacy Statement, Says Reply Brief
Plaintiff Jane Doe didn't consent to the collection of her personal information, and adequately pled her claims, said her reply brief Monday (docket 2:23-cv-00718) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle in opposition to defendant Microsoft’s July 13…
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motion to dismiss her privacy complaint (see 2307140013). Microsoft’s “misconduct” isn’t disclosed within defendant Qualtrics’ privacy statement, which doesn’t identify Microsoft or the types of data collected by the software company, “thus constituting inadequate disclosure,” the reply said. Doe’s May 15 complaint alleges Microsoft and data analytics firm Qualtrics violated patients’ healthcare privacy rights on the Kaiser Permanente website by intercepting and collecting their personal data. Each of Doe’s claims was sufficiently pled because she has a protected property interest in her personal identifiable information, including medical information, and Microsoft “improperly and without compensation to Plaintiff, obtained that information,” said the reply, saying Article III standing was thus sufficiently alleged; Microsoft obtained Doe’s information in a manner that can identify her. On Qualtrics’ request for judicial notice and notice of incorporation by reference, webpages from its website and a login screen and privacy statement from Kaiser Permanente, Doe said none of the pages is referenced in Doe’s complaint, but defendants ask the court to take judicial notice or deem them incorporated into the complaint by reference. Qualtrics advances “self-serving and unsupported interpretations of the documents” they ask the court to “accept as true and substantively correct,” said a Monday brief. In an “improper attempt to add facts to the record” and deny plaintiffs the opportunity to contest those facts, Qualtrics argues the court can take judicial notice of the content of defendants’ chosen portions of the Qualtrics and Kaiser websites, and an undated sign-in page and privacy statement “mentioned nowhere” in Doe’s complaint “is somehow incorporated into that pleading by reference,” said the reply. Neither exception applies, “let alone permits the Court to accept Defendants’ self-serving interpretations of the putative exhibits for purposes of their motion to dismiss.” Both motions to dismiss should be denied, she said. Microsoft and Qualtrics’ replies in support of their motion to dismiss are due Sept. 11.