Vanguard Group secretly helps outside parties like Google and LinkedIn intercept its clients' sensitive personal data for targeted advertising purposes — including stock purchases — without the customers' knowledge or consent, according to a lawsuit seeking class-action status.
The alleged activity affects clients using the financial services giant's website and mobile app, two Vanguard clients, Brian Felsen and Matthew Ragusano, allege in the lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.
Vanguard installed third-party technologies in the app and on the website to track users' investment activities and send the data to those parties for analysis and targeting users with advertising, the suit alleges, accusing Vanguard of violating federal electronic communications privacy law, Pennsylvania's wiretapping and electronic surveillance control act and California invasion of privacy law.
"When a user logs in to their account and selects investments, every selection the user makes is tracked through the page URL, which identifies a purchase is being made and which fund or stock is being purchased. Through the trackers installed on the Website, the Third Parties intercept all responses entered by users, in real time," the complaint alleges.
"For example, LinkedIn and Google intercept each stage of a user’s selection of Domestic Stock for investment, the ticker name, and the action the user is taking with this investment," according to the lawsuit.
Unbeknownst to Vanguard clients, multiple third-party companies have tracked their activity from the moment they entered the firm's website or app, according to the complaint, which notes that clients must provide private information such as their email, birth date, Social Security number, gender and home address to use Vanguard's platforms.
LinkedIn technology, for example, was embedded on Vanguard's website and app, allowing the career platform to intercept and record “click” events, the lawsuit alleges.
"Click events detail information from the Website and App including personal information from account creation, the type of account opened, queries in the search box, ticker symbol, and action taken along with an identifier used to track the visitor’s identity across websites," the suit alleges. LinkedIn incorporated the information it intercepted from Vanguard into its marketing tools to fuel its targeted advertising service, plaintiffs say.
The complaint contends Vanguard deprived clients of their privacy rights when it implemented a system that "surreptitiously tracked, recorded, and transmitted Plaintiffs’ and other online users’ confidential communications, personally identifiable information, and sensitive financial information."
Similarly, on each page of Vanguard's website and app on which Google tracking code is installed, "Google Analytics collects the visitor’s queries in the search box, ticker symbol of funds purchased, and other actions taken along with unique identifiers used to track the visitor’s activity across websites, the language spoken on the site, and the visitor’s browser, operating system, and Wi-Fi provider," the complaint alleges.
The suit also contends that Facebook parent Meta uses its technology on Vanguard's website and app, enabling the social media platform "to eavesdrop on, record, extract information from, and analyze a conversation to which it is not a party."
Vanguard representatives didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
CityWire reported on the lawsuit Monday.
Image: Bloomberg
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