The class action complaint alleges that in late 2007, Cable One, Inc. began installing spyware devices on its broadband networks. Cable One continued using the spyware devices through early 2008. The devices funneled all users’ Internet communications—inbound and outbound, in their entirety—to a third-party Internet advertisement-serving company, NebuAd.

As further alleged, NebuAd and Cable One used the intercepted communications to monitor and profile individual users, inject advertisements into the web pages users visited, transmit code that caused undeletable tracking cookies to be installed on users’ computers, and forge the “return addresses” of user communications so their tampering would escape the detection of Users’ privacy and security controls.

The Plaintiff claims that the ISP-based spyware provided by NebuAd and deployed by Cable One represented a radical innovation. In the context of Defendant’s role as the trusted conduit for all its users’ Internet communications, this ISP-based spyware created an unprecedented, extraordinarily pervasive ability to monitor users, identify particular individuals, and tamper with their communications and personal computers—even when those users were interacting with websites with which neither Defendant nor NebuAd had any relationship.

Cable One gave its users no notice of the impending infiltration and provided no opt-out opportunity. Rather, Cable One provided misleading statements in response to Congressional inquiries about its relationship with NebuAd.