BLU may be facing a class-action lawsuit over sending user data to China

BLU Products is now possibly facing a class-action lawsuit over its role in the leaking of personal user data to a company in China. As reported last week, several BLU phones were discovered to have been sending a variety of information back to a company in China via a pre-installed ‘bloatware’ app. BLU has since patched the problem.

But that hasn’t stopped a law firm from approaching affected BLU users to potentially join in a class action lawsuit against the company. In response, BLU has rather aggressively characterized the firm, Rosen Legal, as an “ambulance chaser who dismisses details and is uneducated on the subject”.

Speaking to Fortune, BLU’s senior marketing director, Carmen Gonzalez, told the publication that “this is a non issue and there is no wrong doing from BLU to warrant any such claim. There were no damages that anyone suffered”. Whether specific damages were suffered or not, it is not a wise customer service maneuver to so casually dismiss consumers’ privacy, especially when they’ve just had their data leaked.

The app in question was periodically delivering text messages, phone call information, location and app usage data to a Chinese server. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of an app doing this, nor of a pre-installed app doing this, so we’re probably more inclined to side with BLU on this one. But the company is going to have a hard time winning back consumer trust after this.

For now at least, the law firm is only proposing an investigation that could lead to a class action suit, so we’ll just have to wait and see if BLU is guilty of any wrongdoing or was simply careless in its business dealings. As always, pay close attention to app permissions, including those for apps that came with your phone.

Do you think BLU is guilty of anything? Or do you think the law firm is just chasing money?