Bose said in a public statement on Friday that the allegations in a lawsuit brought forth in Chicago are not true, and that they plan to fight the suit. Bose went on to call the allegations in question “inflammatory” and “misleading”, and that the company is continuing its 50 year history of fighting for and maintaining users’ trust. Bose claimed that the functionality of the Bose Connect app does not include any sort of wiretapping, Bose never uses any information that they collect to personally identify their users, and that Bose does not sell any customer information to third parties, anonymously or otherwise.
The lawsuit in question alleged that Bose products that connect to their Bose Connect smartphone app were collecting data and sending it to third parties, or perhaps even selling it, in a manner inconsistent with their privacy policy, which is not shown to users up front when starting up the app. The suit alleges that the offending Bose products collect information on a user’s audio choices, among other data, and relay it to third parties, who can then use it to build a profile of that user. The suit was initially brought forth by Bose customer Kyle Zak, who claims to have found evidence that Bose sends customer information to third parties, who send it out from there. Zak claims that a rich profile of a consumer can be made based on the books, music, shows, podcasts, and other audio content that they listen to. The suit is being proctored by a lawyer with Edelson PC, who is openly inviting other customers who may have been affected to join in the lawsuit and turn it into a class action.
As a reminder, this lawsuit could potentially affect anybody who currently owns a Bose product that’s linked to the Bose Connect app, or has owned one in the past and used the app. Those products include, but are certainly not limited to, Bose’s QuietComfort, Quietcontrol, SoundLink, and SoundSport families of headphones and speakers. The lawsuit against Bose is still between Zak, Edelson’s law offices, and Bose for now. It’s not formally a class action suit at the moment, but if enough potentially affected Bose customers decide to back the suit, it could become one.