Delta Air has succeeded in having a California superior state court dismiss with prejudice on May 9th a lawsuit filed by the State Attorney General (AG) Kamala Harris, alleging that Delta filed to post a privacy policy that covers its mobile app.
In the complaint filed at the end of last year, the AG’s office said that Delta violated the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA), and the state’s Unfair Competition Law by not posting a privacy policy on its "Fly Delta" app. The AG further alleged Delta was not complying with its own website privacy policy. While the California state court’s brief decision sustained Delta’s demurrer to the complaint, it appears that the state court agreed with the Delta argument that the California statute does not apply to airlines and is preempted by federal law.
Last year, the California AG began taking a proactive approach in the consumer privacy space with regards to mobile applications. Early in the year, six major mobile application developers such as Google, Microsoft, Research in Motion, Amazon, HP and Apple, voluntarily agreed to post privacy policies in their mobile apps in their "app stores" to comply with CalOPPA. Later, Facebook also signed the agreement.
In October 2012, the California Attorney General sent formal notification letters to about 50 developers whose mobile apps it alleged were not in compliance with CalOPPA. The AG gave the companies 30 days to comply. Sixty days later, the AG sued Delta Air for allegedly failing to post a privacy notice that covers its mobile app. The AG said Delta had been warned but failed to cure the problem. Recently, in January 2013, the AG’s office issued new guidance for mobile app software developers on how to comply with the CalOPPA law.
