22 August 2022
Oracle claims to have amassed detailed dossiers on 5 billion people, and generates $42.4 billion in annual revenue. ICCL's Dr Johnny Ryan is a lead plaintiff in a new U.S. class action to stop its global surveillance machine.
Dr Johnny Ryan, Senior Fellow of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), is one of three class representatives in a new lawsuit filled against Oracle in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday.
Oracle is an important part of the tracking and data industry.[1] It has claimed to have amassed detailed dossiers on 5 billion people,[2] and generates $42.4 billion in annual revenue.[3]
Oracle’s dossiers about people include names, home addresses, emails, purchases online and in the real world, physical movements in the real world, income, interests and political views, and a detailed account of online activity: [4] for example, one Oracle database included a record of a German man who used a prepaid debit card to place a €10 bet on an esports betting site.[5]
Oracle also coordinates a global trade in dossiers about people through the Oracle Data Marketplace.
Dr Ryan and two other plaintiffs, Michael Katz-Lacabe and Dr Jennifer Golbeck, are acting on behalf of worldwide Internet users who have been subject to Oracle’s privacy violations. They are represented by Lieff Cabraser, which has run significant privacy cases against Big Tech.
Dr Johnny Ryan of ICCL said: “Oracle has violated the privacy of billions of people across the globe. This is a Fortune 500 company on a dangerous mission to track where every person in the world goes, and what they do. We are taking this action to stop Oracle’s surveillance machine.”
The complaint against Oracle alleges violations of the Federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Constitution of the State of California, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, competition law, and the common law. View the text of the complaint against Oracle here.
ICCL also has active litigation against Big Tech and the online tracking industry in Irish, Belgian, and German courts.
Video: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison describes Oracle's 5 billion person database.
Notes
[1] Oracle also owns several important subsidiaries in the data and online advertising technology industry, including BlueKai, Datalogix, AddThis, and OnRamp.
[2] Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, keynote at Oracle Openworld 2016, Slide: "Oracle Data Cloud: 5 Billion Consumer Profiles in Database", video time 1:16:36 (archived at URL: https://vimeo.com/741108673). Oracle also claims to have data on 115 million households, see "From a sports bar to a home bar cart, Oracle has the beverage audience to hit your target", Oracle, live as of 19 August 2022 (URL: https://www.oracle.com/de/a/ocom/docs/beverage-digital-audiences-contextual-segments.pdf).
[3] “Oracle Announces Fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Full Year Financial Results”, Oracle, 13 June 2022 (URL: https://investor.oracle.com/investor-news/news-details/2022/Oracle-Announces-Fiscal-2022-Fourth-Quarter-and-Fiscal-Full-Year-Financial-Results/default.aspx)
[4] Oracle Data Cloud Platform User Guide, 15 January 2019 (URL: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/data-cloud/data-cloud-help-center/pdf/Oracle_Data_Cloud_Platform_User_Guide.pdf), pp 43-44; see also Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, keynote at Oracle Openworld 2016, video time 1:15 onward (archived at URL: https://vimeo.com/741108673).
[5] "Oracle's BlueKai tracks you across the web. That data spilled online", TechCrunch, 29 June 2020 (URL: https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/19/oracle-bluekai-web-tracking/); see also Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, keynote at Oracle Openworld 2016, video time 1:15 onward (archived at URL: https://vimeo.com/741108673).