A California court has dismissed a privacy lawsuit against jeweler Maison Miru, ruling the plaintiff failed to demonstrate sufficient concrete harm under Article III standing requirements.
The case, Bonkowski v. Maison Miru LLC, was decided by the Central District of California on 12 August 2026, with the court finding the complaint legally deficient on standing grounds.
Plaintiff Robert Bonkowski brought the suit under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, commonly known as CIPA, alleging the jeweler’s website violated his privacy interests through tracking technology.
Bonkowski alleged that tracking pixels installed by TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, and Pinterest on Maison Miru’s website captured information about his online browsing behaviour without his consent.
The lawsuit claimed that data collected during his visits to the Maison Miru website was shared with those social media platforms, constituting an unlawful interception of his personal information.
Maison Miru moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that Bonkowski had failed to allege a concrete harm sufficient to establish Article III standing, which is a constitutional threshold required to bring a federal claim.
Bonkowski, described in court documents as a website tester and frequent CIPA litigator, argued that the collection of his personal data using tracking pixels without consent was itself a sufficient violation to confer standing.
The court drew comparisons between Bonkowski’s allegations and those raised in Popa v. Microsoft Corp., a 2025 Ninth Circuit decision that addressed similar tracking-related privacy claims.
In Popa, the Ninth Circuit found that tracking information such as website visit dates, device and browser details, geographic location, and user interactions including text input, clicks, and scrolling did not constitute a sufficient basis for standing.
The Bonkowski ruling signals a meaningful legal pathway for defendants facing CIPA claims, particularly where plaintiffs allege broad privacy violations without specifying what categories of sensitive personal data were actually collected.
CIPA litigation has surged in California courts in recent years as plaintiffs target businesses that deploy third-party tracking tools on their websites, making standing arguments an increasingly important defensive strategy.
The decision underscores that alleging a technical violation of privacy statutes, without demonstrating a concrete and particularised injury, may not survive early-stage dismissal in federal court.