On August 14th 2020, The Privacy Collective filed a class action lawsuit against Salesforce and Oracle in the UK and the Netherlands for the use of third party tracking technologies such as cookies, in breach of EU rules under the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) and the ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC). The cases (if successful) would be the largest class action cases ever in the UK and the Netherlands (expected to hit 10 Billion Euros in damages), to date and the first such class action cases under these laws.

The main basis for the claims stems from a judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in October 2019 often referred to as the Planet49 case (Case C-673/17) in which the Court clarified that the use of tracking technologies online is only lawful if opt-in consent has been obtained prior to the use of such technologies; which according to The Privacy Collective, is not the case in relation to Salesforce’s use of such technologies. Read more