Getting a forecast from The Weather Channel's mobile app may seem pretty benign. But a new lawsuit from the City of Los Angeles claims the product is actually gathering your location data so IBM and other third-party groups can make money off it.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, concerns the mobile app's location-tracking feature, which you can turn on to receive localized weather reports. However, city attorneys in Los Angeles claim the same feature will also collect your location data for monetary purposes, without letting you know.
"If the cost of a weather forecast will be the sacrifice of deeply private information—like precisely where we are, day and night—it must be clear, in advance," City Attorney Michael N. Feuer said in a statement.
Feuer filed the lawsuit in response to a December report from The New York Times, which said mobile apps can get away with collecting your location data without offering much notice.
The Weather Channel's mobile app—which has 45 million monthly users—does this the moment you open it for the first time. You'll be greeted with a pop-up asking you to turn location tracking on. But there's no mention of how the data will be shared with third-party groups. For that, you have to dig into the app's privacy settings and read the privacy policy, which Los Angeles officials claim is an effort to obscure the data collection that can actually occur.
"This information is allegedly used for targeted advertisements by at least a dozen third-party websites over the past 19 months based on locations users frequent, and has been [used] by hedge funds interested in analyzing consumer behavior," city attorneys said in a statement.
Although the app uses The Weather Channel's name, the product itself is run by a subsidiary under IBM, which bought The Weather Company in 2016.
In response to the lawsuit, IBM told PCMag: "The Weather Company has always been transparent with use of location data; the disclosures are fully appropriate, and we will defend them vigorously."
The lawsuit wants IBM's subsidiary to stop with the data collection and pay civil penalty fees.
The Weather Channel's mobile app isn't the only product engaging in the shady data collection practices, Feuer said during a press conference on Friday. But his team decided to go after the IBM-owned app, given that it appears to be harmless to smartphone users. His hope is that the lawsuit will serve as a warning to all app makers regarding unwarranted location tracking.