[Enforcement library](/enforcement)

# Mitchener v. Talkspace: a dated network capture outweighed a declaration about what a pixel could send

This page is about evidence. A federal judge sanctioned plaintiff's counsel in part for alleging that a therapy site sent minors' medical information to TikTok without a reasonable inquiry. The defence won the point with a dated forensic capture. The plaintiff's technical declaration said only what the pixel "can" send.

US District Court, Central District of California · CIPA §638.51 and Rule 11 · Dismissal with leave and sanctions granted in part, 27 June 2025; voluntarily dismissed, 23 September 2025

## The problem

Courtney Mitchener alleged that talkspace.com ran the TikTok Pixel, which collected information "the moment a user lands on the Website", so that "even though the Website has a 'cookie banner' the information has already been sent to TikTok" ([FAC ¶ 11](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909.17.0.pdf)). The complaint also stated, without qualification, that names, dates of birth, addresses and "medical information related to minors" went to TikTok (FAC ¶¶ 13, 15). The court found no factual basis shown for the last allegation. It made no finding about what the pixel actually sent during her visit.

- The problem
- Case record
- What was alleged
- Technical issue
- Timeline
- Outcome
- What it cost
- Why it matters
- How Inth catches this
- Checks for your own systems
- Sources and limits

## Case record

| Fact | Record |
| --- | --- |
| Court | US District Court, Central District of California (Judge John A. Kronstadt) |
| Case number | 2:24-cv-07067-JAK (BFMx) |
| Parties | Courtney Mitchener v. Talkspace, Inc. (sued as Talkspace Network LLC) |
| Counsel | Plaintiff: Tauler Smith LLP. Defendant: Baker & Hostetler LLP (\[docket\](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69061977/courtney-mitchener-v-talkspace-network-llc/)) |
| Laws | CIPA §638.51 (trap and trace), the only claim; Rule 11 |
| Stage | Voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, 23 September 2025 |
| Amount | No fee award appears in the record reviewed; the court's tentative view in September 2025 was to deny Talkspace's fee motion |
| Source review | 17 October 2026 |

## What was alleged

| Claim or motion | Standard | Record | Result |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CIPA §638.51 | Trap and trace device without court order or consent | TikTok Pixel fingerprinted visitors on landing (FAC ¶¶ 8–23) | Dismissed with leave: the FAC did not identify any personal information of hers that was captured (\[order\](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909.56.0.pdf), p. 9) |
| Rule 11(b)(3) (Talkspace's motion) | Factual contentions need evidentiary support after a reasonable inquiry | Allegations that the site sent names, dates of birth, addresses and minors' medical information to TikTok | Granted in part, as to the minors' medical information allegation (pp. 14–15) |
| Motion to strike | Immaterial or scandalous matter | Allegations about teen therapy and prescription drugs (FAC ¶¶ 15–17) | Moot after dismissal; considered under Rule 11 |

## Technical issue

- **Tools or vendors:** the TikTok Pixel, as the "TikTok Cookie" (order, p. 2).
- **Where:** talkspace.com landing page and forms, including pages for teen therapy and a depression test (FAC ¶¶ 15, 18).
- **What the banner did:** the site had a cookie banner; the complaint alleged the pixel fired before it (FAC ¶ 11). Plaintiff later argued Talkspace changed its banner in March 2024 and its privacy policy on 12 April 2024, after her February 2024 visit (order, p. 13).
- **Defence evidence:** Jim Vint of Secretariat Advisors used Fiddler Everywhere to capture the site in September and October 2024. He "did not observe name, date of birth, address, or medical information being transmitted to TikTok from any webpage or form reviewed" (order, pp. 3–4).
- **Plaintiff's evidence:** a screenshot of TikTok code on the site (Kumar Declaration, Ex. 5), and a declaration from a technical declarant, Adam Weiss, who described himself as "President, CEO and Lead Web Developer at Great Matter" and said the pixel "can send form data captured from any page on the website . . . depending on the pixel's configuration" ([Dkt. 36](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909.36.0.pdf), ¶¶ 2, 4).

**Inth's technical interpretation:** "can send" and "did send" are different claims. Whether the TikTok Pixel sends form fields depends on configuration (automatic advanced matching, event setup) on a given date. Proving either side needs a capture of the actual requests, from the relevant pages, close to the relevant date. Talkspace's capture was seven months after the visit, which is why the plaintiff attacked its timing.

Illustrative pattern, not the defendant's code.

```js
// Risky: pixel loaded on intake pages, matching reads form fields
ttq.load('TIKTOK_PIXEL_ID');           // automatic advanced matching on
ttq.page();
form.addEventListener('submit', () => ttq.track('SubmitForm'));
```

Illustrative pattern, not the defendant's code. Generic consent API, not a c15t call.

```js
// Safer: no ad pixel on health intake pages; elsewhere only after consent,
// and every load leaves a dated record of what ran
const intakePage = location.pathname.startsWith('/intake');
if (!intakePage && consent.has('marketing')) {
  loadTikTokPixel('TIKTOK_PIXEL_ID', { advancedMatching: false });
}
```

## Timeline

| Date | Event |
| --- | --- |
| 20 August 2024 | Complaint filed |
| 25 November 2024 | First amended complaint, one §638.51 claim |
| 7 March 2025 | Talkspace moves for Rule 11 sanctions |
| 21 and 22 March 2025 | Plaintiff's opposition, with Kumar, Tauler and Weiss declarations |
| 27 June 2025 | Dismissal with leave; sanctions granted in part; fee amount deferred (\[Dkt. 56\](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909.56.0.pdf)) |
| 14 and 15 July 2025 | Fee application; second amended complaint |
| 15 September 2025 | Hearing; tentative view to deny fees and grant dismissal (minutes entered 22 September, corrected 26 September) |
| 23 September 2025 | Plaintiff voluntarily dismisses without prejudice (\[docket\](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69061977/courtney-mitchener-v-talkspace-network-llc/)) |
| 7 January 2026 | In-chambers order (Dkt. 74); text not available |

## Outcome

**Standing.** "The only specific, relevant allegation in the FAC is that 'Plaintiff visited Defendant's website after the TikTok software was installed'", which did not identify what, if anything, was captured from her (p. 9).

**Rule 11.** On the technical declarant: "Weiss has not shown that he has sufficient expertise in technical data audits. Further, Weiss states only that the data could be transmitted, not that any such data actually was transmitted" (p. 14). On the inquiry: "Plaintiff has not provided any evidence or explanation of any investigation that occurred prior to filing the FAC" (p. 15). The court inferred some investigation behind ¶ 13, which showed the form and the pixel code, but none behind the minors' medical information allegation in ¶ 15, which was made "unequivocally, not upon information and belief" (p. 15).

The order found a Rule 11 violation and deferred any fee award. The later tentative view was to deny fees; the plaintiff dismissed before a final fee ruling appears in the record reviewed. The order is unpublished.

## What it cost

| Item | Record |
| --- | --- |
| Damages or settlement | None |
| Rule 11 fee award | None shown; fee motion tentatively denied at the 15 September 2025 hearing |
| Defence costs | Not stated in the cited record |

## Why it matters

- **Evidence quality decides early motions.** Courts reject complaints and declarations that describe what a tracker is capable of rather than what it sent. Compare [Rodriguez v. Autotrader](/enforcement/rodriguez-v-autotrader), where neither side put the banner's details in the record.
- **Standing after Popa.** The order followed the line later sharpened in [Popa v. Microsoft](/enforcement/popa-v-microsoft): a plaintiff must say what of hers was taken.
- **SB 690** (Stats. 2026, ch. 976), signed 30 September 2026 and operative 1 January 2027 (the default effective date for a 2026 statute), makes private §638.51 claims over website and app conduct Attorney General only, retroactively for pending claims in actions filed on or after 1 January 2025; §631, §632 and §632.7 are untouched ([bill text](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB690)). This action was filed in August 2024 and dismissed in September 2025, so SB 690 does not change it. Tracking claims of this kind now increasingly arrive as demand letters with technical "reports"; see [demand letters](/enforcement/demand-letters).

## How Inth catches this

This case is about proof, so Inth's role is the record an operator keeps before any letter arrives.

- **Website audit:** timestamped observations of which scripts and domains loaded on each page, with region and consent state. If you keep them, they show what a page did in the month a plaintiff says they visited, not seven months later.
- **Consent banner:** consent records with the visitor's choice, country and the policy that applied. Inth's default California policy is opt-out, so a pixel like this one runs before a choice; holding it until the visitor chooses needs a California opt-in policy, which is a configuration choice.
- **Code audit:** the history of when the TikTok Pixel and any matching settings entered the codebase, with the pull request and approval.
- **Evidence:** together these let you answer "what was sent, when, and under which consent state" with your own dated records.

These records show what your pages did; they cannot show what TikTok did with data after receipt, and they do not substitute for an expert where a court needs one.

## Checks for your own systems

### In the repository

- List ad pixels on health, intake and assessment pages; remove them or justify each.
- Check TikTok and Meta matching settings for automatic form-field collection.

### In the browser and network

- Capture a HAR on each intake form, fill in test data, and search the capture for every value you typed.
- Keep the capture with the date and the build that produced it.

### With the people responsible

- Decide who keeps dated captures and how long, so you can answer a letter about a past date.
- When a letter or complaint describes your site, compare its dates and screenshots with your own records before responding.

## Sources and limits

- [Order of 27 June 2025 (Dkt. 56)](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909.56.0.pdf)
- [First amended complaint (Dkt. 17)](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909.17.0.pdf)
- [Declaration of Adam Weiss, 21 March 2025 (Dkt. 36)](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909/gov.uscourts.cacd.937909.36.0.pdf)
- [Docket, 2:24-cv-07067 (CourtListener)](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69061977/courtney-mitchener-v-talkspace-network-llc/)

Source review: 17 October 2026. This page describes the cited records and procedural stage. It does not audit Talkspace, Inc.'s current systems. Inth wrote the technical checks; they cannot decide which laws apply or prove compliance.

Related: [Rodriguez v. Autotrader](/enforcement/rodriguez-v-autotrader) · [Shah v. Crain Communications](/enforcement/shah-v-crain-communications) · [Sensitive context in event data](/enforcement/issues/sensitive-context-in-event-data) · [CIPA §638.51](/enforcement/laws/cipa-638-51-pen-register)