Tile's Amazon Partnership Extended Trackers', Stalkers' Reach: Complaint

Tile’s partnership with Amazon’s Sidewalk network “expanded the reach and efficacy of the Tile tracker" and “exponentially magnified the danger posed to victims,” said a class action Monday (docket 3:23-cv-04119) against Tile, its parent company Life360 and Amazon in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

From the time Tile released its tracker in 2013, the company marketed the product “explicitly and implicitly for the purpose of tracking people -- particularly women,” said the complaint. Texas residents Shannon Ireland-Gordy and Stephanie Ireland Gordy bring the action on behalf of themselves and a class and subclasses of individuals who have been or are at the risk of being stalked “via this dangerous product.”

If a Tile tracker is more than 100 feet from the owner’s smartphone and is reported as lost, the Tile App uses a “crowd GPS” feature, which, if it comes in range of another smartphone with a Tile App, sends the tracker’s owner an update of its location. When Tile partnered with Amazon in May 2021, the trackers were able to harness and tap into Amazon’s Echo device network, expanding its crowd GPS network “exponentially,” said the complaint.

The complaint cited product reviews questioning the privacy dangers of Tile trackers, including a 2013 Vice article noting the devices are “maybe not so great for people worried about potentially being stalked or unknowingly tracked by someone with bad intentions.” A 2021 Mozilla article said: “It’s pretty scary to think someone could unknowingly slip a Tile tracker in your car and use it to stalk you all over the US thanks to the big Amazon Sidewalk community network.”

A former Tile engineer sued the company in 2015 for workplace discrimination, saying the company’s marketing strategy in the early phase of the tracker’s launch included advertising on “pornography sites, sites about erectile dysfunction, and other dubious outlets.” Tile’s video ads “prompted some viewers to post comments about using ‘Tiles’ to stalk women and commit sexual violence against them,” said the complaint.

Plaintiff Stephanie Ireland Gordy was stalked after a breakup with her then-girlfriend, said the complaint. The “ex” broke into her car and hid a Tile Slim tracker in the console of Gordy’s Jeep, and over the next several months she would unexpectedly appear at locations where both plaintiffs were, it said. When plaintiffs moved to a new residence, the stalker quickly found the location and made attempts to intimidate plaintiffs and damage their property, it said.

After numerous tracking incidents, Gordy found the Tile in the Jeep’s console and pressed charges against the stalker. Houston police requests to Tile for information were “impeded and obstructed”; the company also refused to accept an out-of-state subpoena, said the complaint. The case against the stalker was ultimately dismissed by the Harris County district attorney in 2019 for lack of evidence.

The stalker sued the Gordys in June 2019 and thus “opened herself up to Discovery” and “fulsome discovery responses from Tile,” said the complaint. Before the breakup, the stalker’s trackers had been pinged -- their location sought -- 30 times in a 10-month period through October 2016. Within a week of the breakup, until March 2017, the stalker’s phone pinged Tile’s servers over 16,000 times, said the complaint. After plaintiffs found the Tile, the stalker sought to rename and deactivate all trackers associated with the account, it said.

If Tile had given law enforcement any of the information later provided during discovery in the civil case, plaintiffs’ criminal case against their stalker “likely would not have been dismissed,” said the complaint. “It is clear that Tile did not respond in good faith to law enforcement’s initial subpoenas,” it said. Plaintiffs have since “moved once more, and remain in effective hiding in an effort to stay undetectable by their stalker,” it said: “They are unable to live normal lives, and are in constant fear of reprisal.”

Plaintiffs assert claims of negligence; negligence per se; strict liability, design defect, consumer expectation and risk-benefit tests; unjust enrichment; intrusion upon seclusion; and violation of the California Constitutional Right to Privacy, Invasion of Privacy Act and Business and Professional Code. They seek injunctive and declaratory relief, including an order enjoining the companies from further fraudulent practices involving the design, manufacture and release of their products. They seek an award of actual, nominal, statutory and/or punitive damages. Tile didn't comment. An Amazon spokesperson emailed the company doesn't comment on ongoing litigation.