dotStrategy, Co. v. Twitter Inc

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 7 DOTSTRATEGY CO, Case No. 19-cv-06176-CRB

Plaintiff,

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND

v. DENYING IN PART MOTION TO

DISMISS

TWITTER INC., Defendant.

Twitter, Inc., promises advertisers on its platform that they will only be charged when “people” interact with the accounts or Tweets they are paying to promote. DotStrategy, Co., believes it was charged for interactions with automated accounts (“bots”) and that Twitter failed to refund it for those interactions even after it learned that the bot accounts were not, in fact, controlled by “people.” DotStrategy has sued Twitter under California’s Unfair Competition Law. Twitter moves to dismiss. The motion is denied as to dotStrategy’s allegations based on interactions with bots. The First Amended Complaint adequately alleges that dotStrategy suffered economic injury as a result of its reliance on Twitter’s false representation that advertisers would only be charged for…