According to a report in CNET News, the lawsuits filed in a Colorado court state that Avenue A and MatchLogic “covertly, without consent or authorisation, planted cookies upon internet users' computer hard disk drives and secretly tracked their movements across the internet”.
Groups such as Privacy Foundation in the US have been campaigning for national laws to protect the privacy of individuals on-line. At present, the country has no equivalent of Europe’s strict data protection regime.
The lawsuits against Avenue A and MatchLogic are based on the US Electronic Communication Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and common law trespass.