Lofty—the CRM and marketing platform for the real estate industry—announced a significant legal and legislative victory following California Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature of Senate Bill 690 (SB 690) into law, eliminating the private right of action for pen register claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA).
According to a release, SB 690 effectively ends a wave of demand letter campaigns that had threatened California businesses with hundreds of millions of dollars in potential statutory damages for standard website analytics practices.
Lofty filed a federal declaratory judgment action in the United States District Court for the Central District of California (Lofty, Inc. v. Shah). With Newsom’s signature, Lofty voluntarily dismissed that action. Previously, the platform launched a CIPA Defense Program—a first of its kind legal protection initiative—providing customers with a full legal defense against CIPA demand letters.
SB 690 amends CIPA to eliminate the private right of action for alleged pen register violations under Cal. Penal Code § 638.51, which had been asserted against businesses that use third-party analytics, advertising and tracking technologies on their websites. Previously, plaintiffs claimed that common tools such as Google Analytics, HubSpot and similar platforms constituted illegal “pen registers,” exposing businesses to legal damages of $5,000 per violation.
Under SB 690, only the California attorney general has the right to enforce legal action, removing private litigation that had been used to obtain settlements from businesses engaging in ordinary, lawful commercial practices.
In its release, Lofty states that it will continue to focus on developing innovative technology solutions, built to support agents and monitor the evolving privacy regulatory landscape to protect its customers and the integrity of its platform.
“Since our inception, we have been committed to serving the real estate industry through our agentic AI platform—one that depends on the same analytics and lead-tracking integrations that power virtually every modern website,” Lofty CEO Joe Chen said. “We are grateful to the California legislature for acting swiftly and to Governor Newsom for recognizing that CIPA’s pen register provisions were being exploited to undermine, rather than protect, businesses and consumers across the country.”
For more information, visit lofty.com.
