Lawsuits are stacking up in federal court against Edward Jones, alleging the firm violated privacy laws by sharing clients’ private information for use in targeted ads by LinkedIn, Google and Meta.
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A California man named Vishal Shah sued Edward Jones in federal court this week after learning that personal information he had provided to the firm’s website — in order to be matched with a financial advisor — had allegedly been shared improperly with LinkedIn. Shah’s suit comes about a week and a half after an Edward Jones client named Mark Maurer filed a separate federal action in California accusing the firm of illegally sharing his data with Google, Meta, LinkedIn and other companies.
The personal information allegedly harvested included account balances, transaction histories, IP (internet protocol) addresses — which are unique to individual devices — and responses to financial questionnaires. The plaintiffs accuse Edward Jones of installing tracking software from third parties like LinkedIn, Google and Meta to extract data for use in online ads targeted at users with certain characteristics.
Both suits allege violations of various California and federal privacy laws and seek class-action status so others with similar complaints can join.
A spokesperson for Edward Jones said, “We have not been served with the lawsuit referenced and cannot speak to the specific allegations.
“However, our clients remain our top priority, and we are firmly committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality and security of their information.”
Lawyers representing Shah and Maurer in their suits did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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How a ‘simple code snippet’ can be used to harvest client data
Protecting private investor data has been a priority for industry regulators in recent years.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, adopted a slew of changes in 2024 giving firms additional obligations under a federal privacy rule known as Regulation S-P. The biggest change gives investment advisors, brokers and other affected firms 30 days to tell clients of any data security lapse that might trigger “a reasonably likely risk of substantial harm or inconvenience to an individual identified with the information.”
Rather than Reg S-P infractions, the suits against Edward Jones accuse the firm of violating California’s invasion of privacy act and, in Maurer’s case, of negligence and unjust enrichment under federal law. Shah, in his suit, alleges he was never informed that Edward Jones would capture his data for use in targeted ads on LinkedIn, a social media site for professionals that Microsoft acquired in 2016.
He accuses Edward Jones of using something known as the LinkedIn Insight Tag — which LinkedIn calls a “simple code snippet” — to track responses to an online questionnaire about why prospective clients are looking to work with a financial advisor. The suit says the Insight Tag allows LinkedIn to collect information provided by LinkedIn users on websites like Edward Jones’.
The data is then used to devise ads that appear on LinkedIn, targeting the original user and people with similar characteristics.
“Such information is extremely valuable to marketers and advertisers because the inferences derived from users’ personal information and communications allow marketers and advertisers, including providers of financial products and services, to target potential customers,” according to Shah’s suit.
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LinkedIn allegedly tracked answers about savings goals, investing experience
Shah alleges the LinkedIn Insight Tag was used to track his responses to several multiple choice questions he answered on Edward Jones’ website about why he was looking to work with a financial advisor. Those questions, and his answers, included:
Do you currently work with a financial advisor? (He answered “no.”)Which best describes what you need now? (He answered by clicking on a box labeled “Planning for assets recently received.”)How do you feel about your current savings goals? (He clicked on a box saying “I feel like I’m behind on my goals and want to catch up.”How much investing experience do you have? (He answered, “Just getting started.”)What best describes your finances? (He answered “complex.”)
Shah also clicked on boxes identifying his age as being between 60 and 74 and stating that he was considering investing between $250,000 and $499,000 with an investment advisor. The suit alleges that LinkedIn’s Insight Tag is designed to collect data even from users who have disabled third-party “cookies,” which websites use to track visitors and their browsing actions.
“The information disclosed by [Edward Jones] allows LinkedIn to know the identities of specific individuals as well as their private financial information,” according to the suit. “This allows these companies, including [Edward Jones], to profit from this information for targeted advertising purposes.”
LinkedIn did not respond to a request for comment.
Google accused of harvesting account numbers, transaction details
Maurer’s separate lawsuit makes a host of similar allegations against not only LinkedIn but also Facebook’s parent Meta, Google (a subsidiary of Alphabet), and the marketing and analytics firms The Trade Desk and ContentSquare (formerly ClickTale). Maurer accuses Edward Jones of allowing tracking software from all these companies to run on its websites.
According to the suit: “Edward Jones effectively installed a listening device in Plaintiff’s and Class Members’ web browsers, apps, and devices that disclosed and caused their communications to be intercepted, accessed, viewed, recorded, and captured by third parties in real time, as they were communicated to Edward Jones.”
“This wiretapping is no different than if Edward Jones had allowed the same third parties to access telephone wires in their offices so that the third parties’ engineers could secretly listen to and record conversations between people and their brokers revealing the intimate details of their financial lives,” the suit adds.
Maurer’s suit alleges that Edward Jones did not stop at allowing these firms to track potential clients’ answers to an online questionnaire about why they are seeking help from an advisor. It also, according to the suit, allowed their tracking systems to be installed on its customer portal, enabling them to keep tabs on clients who were checking “their transaction history, account balances, and more.”
According to Maurer’s suit, Google was able to learn that one client, who goes unnamed, was interested in lines of credit and loans. The suit says Google captured the last four digits of the client’s account number and “granular information” such as which banks the client had drawn money from and details on recent purchases or sales of investments.
Maurer and any other aggrieved parties, according to the suit, “had no way of knowing that Edward Jones was disclosing and allowing third parties to intercept and record their private data, including sensitive personal financial records, their IP addresses, and their identifiable cookies, when they engaged with the Edward Jones Properties because the Tracking Technologies were inconspicuously incorporated in code running in the background.”
