Dickey’s BBQ Pit illegally wiretaps the private conversations of every individual who uses the chat feature to communicate on its website, a new class action lawsuit alleges. 

Plaintiff Miguel Esparza claims Dickey’s BBQ illegally wiretaps the private conversations while simultaneously allowing a third party to “eavesdrop” on them in real time in order to “harvest data for financial gain.” 

Esparza claims Dickey’s BBQ does all this without ever getting consent from its website visitors to either be wiretapped or eavesdropped on. 

“Defendant neither informs visitors of this conduct nor obtains their consent to these intrusions,” states the Dickey’s BBQ class action. 

Esparza wants to represent a California class of consumers who have communicated with Dickey’s BBQ using the chat feature on its website and who had those communications recorded and/or eavesdropped on without their consent. 

Dickey’s BBQ is able to wiretap the private conversations of its website visitors by embedding a code into its chat feature that is able to automatically record and create transcripts of them, the Dickey’s BBQ class action alleges. 

Esparza claims Dickey’s BBQ allows the independent third-party company Zendesk to “secretly intercept in real time” and store transcripts of the communications made via its chat feature, even when the conversations are “private and deeply personal.” 

“Visitors would be shocked and appalled to know that Defendant secretly records those conversations and allows a third party to eavesdrop on them in real time under the guise of ‘data analytics,’” states the Dickey’s BBQ class action. 

Esparza claims Dickey’s BBQ is in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. He is demanding a jury trial and requesting declaratory and injunctive relief along with an award of statutory and punitive damages for himself and all class members. 

A number of companies have recently faced class action lawsuits accusing them of secretly tracking the activity of website visitors, including Hot Topic, Meta Platforms, GameStop, and Zillow, among others. 

Have you had your online conversations secretly recorded by a company? Let us know in the comments! 

The plaintiff is represented by Scott J. Ferrell of Pacific Trial Attorneys. 

The Dickey’s BBQ website chats class action lawsuit is Esparza v. Dickeys BBQ Pit Inc., et al. , Case No. 3:22-cv-01502, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

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This really, REALLY upsets me. I’ve been on that site as recently as last week, always to see if they have baked potatoes available, which they never do. I know for a fact at least one time while being on their site (because I quickly left my house to pick up the order) had a very personal conversation take place. I pray to God that was not recorded. It turns my stomach to think that it may have. Who can I contact ASAP to find out if it was? I’m seriously pacing the floor while typing this What kind of sick f@$# decides to record and then print a persons private conversations they have within their own four walls?!?! Man, you’ve got some serious trust issues with yourself to do that. Nail them f@$#ers to the wall!!! I personally hope they receive jail time for this. I’m sure I’ll lose sleep over this.

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