Golden State Warriors Spied On Fans Via Smartphone App, Lawsuit Alleges

zeeshan2 · Nov 27, 2017

The Golden State Warriors are facing a tough showdown—not on the basketball court, but in a U.S. district court, where a judge has ordered the team to trial over its smartphone app, which allegedly recorded fans’ conversations.

The Warriors’ app bills itself as a way for fans to keep track of scores and stats. But while fans were watching the game, the app was watching them, fan LaTisha Satchell claims in a lawsuit. One of the app’s promotional tools allegedly turns a user’s phone microphone on and keeps it on, recording everything within earshot and relaying data back to the Warriors and a tech company, possibly in violation of wiretap laws.

“[The Warriors] gained access to tens of thousands of microphones belonging to consumers who downloaded the Warriors App and turned their mobile devices into bugged listening devices,” the suit alleges.

The unlikely snooping program started as an effort to sell merchandise and ticket upgrades, the suit contends. The Warriors wanted to know when fans were on Warrior-owned property, and how long they stayed there. The app tracked this through audio “beacons” that played through special transmitters in their arena and stores, the suit alleges. The app listened for those beacons and sent customized advertisements to a user’s phone.

An app user sitting in the nosebleed seats at a Warriors game might get a notification suggesting they upgrade to tickets with a better view. A fan in the gift shop might get an alert about a special promotion on merchandise.

But the app allegedly didn’t stop when fans left the arena. Instead, it constantly listened in and recorded conversations, even when fans weren’t directly using the app.

Satchell first filed her suit last year, accusing the Warriors of snooping on fans’ conversations. But a judge slapped down the suit, claiming Satchell didn’t provide enough information about the conversations the Warriors allegedly recorded.

In an amended complaint filed earlier this year, Satchell described the personal information the app could have intercepted, including conversations with her husband in their bedroom, private business meetings, and discussions with a loan officer.

During all these conversations, Satchell had her phone within earshot, which means the app was recording through her microphone she says.

The app funneled data back to computer program, which let analysts monitor users’ actions, the suit claims. The suit includes a screenshot from the Warriors’ data-tracking platform, which shows a graph of how long 2,178 app users stood in a single location in or near the Warriors’ arena. (The average user stood in that spot for one minute and 25 seconds.) The data-scraping program could be tailored to track a user’s “in-location customer path,” the suit claims.
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Deuce · Nov 27, 2017

#LightYears

Ziggy · Nov 27, 2017

Y'all ain't WOKE.

TracywtFacy · Nov 27, 2017

This gon be bigger than the Cardinals hacking scandal. Warriors can kiss all their picks foe the next 7 years goodbye.

BigShasta · Nov 27, 2017

Would be absolutely the greatest thing in the world if somehow this gets linked to listening in on 'team' conversations and the Warriors + Durant loses their ring.

pippendagimp · Nov 27, 2017

silly-con valley in deep

heypartner · Nov 27, 2017

Bound to happen, as there is no Net Neutrality in basketball.

Speaking of which, imagine if this were the Nets, and Prokhorov was spying on us?

TheresTheDagger · Nov 27, 2017

This is the most relevant part of the article. This is not good for the Warriors org.

On Monday, a U.S. District Court judge in Oakland said the alleged recording might have violated the Wiretap Act, which bans real-time interception of phone calls or, in this case, conversations made near a phone.
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Torn n Frayed · Nov 27, 2017

Pegasus falls in faint...

TracywtFacy · Nov 27, 2017

I bet the Patriot Act is also somehow invoked.

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Golden State Warriors Spied On Fans Via Smartphone App, Lawsuit Alleges

zeeshan2 Member

Deuce Context & Nuance

Ziggy QUEEN ANON

TracywtFacy Member

BigShasta Contributing Member

pippendagimp Member

heypartner Contributing Member

TheresTheDagger Member

Torn n Frayed Member

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