Tracking players on the court is all the rage in the NBA these days. Tracking fans off the court? That should be a hard pass.
The Golden State Warriors are the perfect embodiment of the Silicon Valley culture in which they operate. They are all about efficiency, organizational character, buzzwords, bootstrapping, paradigm shifting, and disruption. All really great, great stuff from a franchise that was the laughingstock of the NBA for most of their existence.
NSA-style tracking of fans using their official smartphone app? Ehhhh…maybe not such a great idea. It’s a creepy look for a team that has already lost some of their “us against the world” shine.
A class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court earlier this week by Latisha Satchell alleges that the Warriors were running a secret data-mining operation behind the backs of their fans. The suit alleges that the Warriors recorded private conversations and other audio from users’ phones without their knowledge or permission, and without giving them the ability to opt out.
Since 2014, the Warriors have been partnered with Signal360 and Yinzcam to integrate Signal’s “beacon” feature into their official team app. The added feature allows the app to track users’ location in an effort to provide them with location-based and targeted advertisement. Under the guise of becoming the most technologically-aggressive team in the league and “enhancing the fan experience,” the app recorded audio at all times, regardless of whether or not the fan was actually actively using the app.
The lawsuit points out that the app allows Warriors fans to opt out of certain features and services, but are unable to stop the app from tracking their location. The app needs to access the microphone to enable the beacon technology, but no reason is given as to why this access is needed. The app also fails to make even a single mention of the beacon feature.
It’s bad enough that the Warriors feel the need to track their fans at all times just to provide them with more relevant, useful ads. It’s even worse that they feel as though listening in to conversations will give their app more useful data to show fans the ads they really want/need to be seeing at every single moment. The app is also running constantly in the background, so there’s also a chance plenty of data overages were incurred as a result of its incessant tracking.
The plaintiffs are suing the Warriors and the companies associated with the app for $10,000 per person included in the class. If you are a Warriors fan who faithfully used their app in good conscience, not expecting to be tracked like an international spy, you could have a nice payday coming your way.
The entirety of the lawsuit can be viewed here.