On March 1, 2021, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of the Northern District of California dismissed a variety of claims brought against the genealogy website Ancestry.com based on the website’s use of individuals’ personal information obtained from school yearbooks. In so doing, Judge Beeler added to the growing body of case law defining what constitutes an injury sufficient to support Article III standing in the context of data privacy class actions and highlighted the potential utility of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“Section 230”) as a tool defendants can use to defeat privacy-related putative class actions.

The case is Callahan v. Ancestry.com Inc., No. 20-cv-08437-LB (N.D. Cal.), and you can read a summation at https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/northern-district-of-california-holds-7920296/ as well as the details Judge Beeler’s decision at: https://casetext.com/case/callahan-v-ancestrycom-inc.