IBM CEO Ginni Rometty Photograph by Stuart Isett/Fortune Most Powerful Women

IBM’s Weather Channel unit is being sued by the city of Los Angeles over alleged misleading of its  users about how their location data was being utilized. It accuses The Weather Channel of “tracking minute details about its users’ locations throughout the day and night, all the while leading users to believe that their data will only be used to provide them with “personalized local weather data, alerts and forecasts.”

It alleges The Weather Channel profited from that data, engaging in use and monetization for purposes unrelated to its app. “Unfortunately, TWC takes advantage of its app’s widespread popularity by using it as an intrusive tool to mine users’ private geolocation data, which TWC then sends to IBM affiliates and other third parties for advertising and other commercial purposes entirely unrelated to either weather or the Weather Channel App’s services.” The city of Los Angeles said in its filing.

image : The Weather Channel

The Weather Channel engages in analysis and transfer of users’ “detailed geolocation” data for “a variety of commercial and advertising purposes, including for targeted advertisements based on locations users frequent, and for hedge funds interested in analyzing consumer behavior”, the filing claims.

This lawsuit drags IBM into a wider conversation concerning how tech companies utilize consumer data which has been in the limelight in recent times, prompting inquiries from regulators, politicians and users alike. It also comes shortly IBM CEO Ginni Rometty took to criticism of tech giants involved in “irresponsible handling” of user data. Rometty in a November speech termed this handling of user data by “dominant consumer-facing platform companies” as creating a “trust crisis” in the online ecosystem.

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