On October 25, 2023, a California resident filed a lawsuit against Costco Wholesale Corporation ("Costco") for allegedly disclosing consumers' confidential medical information to unauthorized third parties such as Meta, Google, and Adobe.
The plaintiff alleges that Costco installed on its pharmacy website various tracking tools – including a tool called Facebook pixel – which caused patients' communications with the website to be shared with and/or intercepted by unauthorized third parties for marketing and advertising purposes. The collected information purportedly includes patients' identities and details about the health care they sought and received from Costco, including the name of their prescription medications, dosage, form of the mediation, and more. This information could be used to reasonably infer that a specific patient was being treated for a specific type of medical condition such as cancer, mental health conditions, and an array other symptoms or conditions.
The lawsuit seeks monetary and injunctive relief on behalf of a Nationwide class and a California subclass for violations of Washington and California privacy laws, breach of implied contract, breach of fiduciary duty of confidentiality, unjust enrichment, and negligence.
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