When Routine Marketing Triggers a Class Action: Defending Subject-Line, Tracking-Pixel, and Video-Privacy Claims

Ian M. Ross, Partner | Sidley Austin LLP

Ian M. Ross is a Partner at Sidley Austin LLP and a Co-Leader of the firm’s Consumer Class Actions practice, based in the firm’s Miami and Chicago offices. Ian is an experienced trial lawyer who represents clients in business disputes, commercial and securities litigation, nationwide class actions, and government investigations. He regularly handles high-stakes litigation matters across the country and is often asked to defend his clients in class actions involving novel privacy and statutory theories. In recent years, he has written and spoken extensively on emerging theories of liability under national and state privacy and consumer protection laws.

• Education & Credentials

Ian earned his J.D., cum laude, from Duke University School of Law (2005), where he served as Executive Editor of the Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, and his B.A. with honors in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University (2002). He is admitted to practice in Florida and Illinois, and to the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Florida and the Northern District of Illinois.

• Recognition & Leadership

Ian is ranked by Chambers USA for his Florida practice in Securities Litigation (Band 1; 2022–2026) and in General Commercial Litigation (2022–2026) and has been recognized in The American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Week” publication three times in the last two years. He is ranked in The Best Lawyers in America for Litigation – Securities (2026), Florida Legal Elite (2023–2025), Florida Super Lawyers (2023–2026), and Legal 500 United States, and is AV-Preeminent-rated by Martindale-Hubbell (2025). He received the Daily Business Review’s Florida Legal Award for Social Impact (2021) for his pro bono representation of detainees and asylum seekers.

• Professional Involvement

Ian serves as Vice-President/President Elect of the Americans for Immigrant Justice Board, is a member of the Florida Bar Association Cybersecurity and Privacy Law Committee and Business Law Committee and serves on the Regional Board of Read to a Child, South Florida. He serves on the editorial board of the Enhanced Scrutiny blog, where the Sidley team provides timely updates and analysis on M&A and corporate governance matters from the Delaware courts. His analysis has been featured in the Florida Bar Journal, the Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law, Law360, and the Daily Business Review.

• Experience

Ian has served as lead counsel and represented national companies in more than 20 national class actions arising out of federal and state consumer protection statutes, including retail, telecommunications, online retailing, food and beverage, sports and fitness, and home appliances. His successes include defeating class certification in a national class action brought against a sports and fitness company, prevailing on motions to dismiss standing and jurisdictional issues, and winning summary judgment in TCPA class actions. He has also represented corporations, directors and officers, and accounting firms in federal securities class actions and SEC, DOJ, and FDIC investigations involving insider trading, misappropriation, fraud, internal control audits, and financial restatements.

Jacquelyn E. Fradette, Partner | Sidley Austin LLP

Jacquelyn Fradette is a Partner at Sidley Austin LLP in Washington, D.C., and a trial lawyer who represents clients in all areas of litigation. She has tried cases through arbitration as well as in state and federal court, with experience spanning litigation strategy and pre-complaint analysis through trial, and a particular focus on hearings, depositions, and fact witness and expert testimony. Her practice covers commercial litigation and class action litigation arising under the False Claims Act, the Lanham Act, state consumer protection laws, state common law false advertising, breach of contract, and business tort claims, as well as federal and state constitutional claims and civil actions against government entities.

• Education & Credentials

Jacquelyn earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from Notre Dame Law School in 2014, where she served as a Development Editor of the Notre Dame Law Review, and her B.A. from St. John’s College in 2007. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Maryland and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Colorado, the District of Columbia, and the District of Maryland.

• Recognition & Leadership

Following law school, Jacquelyn was selected to serve as a law clerk to Judge Margaret A. Ryan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (2014–2015).

• Professional Involvement

Jacquelyn is a member of the American Bar Association, the Maryland State Bar Association, and the National Association of Women Lawyers.

• Experience

Jacquelyn has litigated for, and counseled, clients across industries including pharmaceuticals and biologics, OTC drugs, cosmetics, dietary supplements, medical devices, genetic testing, energy and oil and gas, outdoor advertising and publishing, and electronic financial transactions. Her recent representations include successfully defending a global sunscreen brand in parallel federal class actions over its labeled SPF protection; winning a complete defense verdict for a global pharmaceutical company in a class action over the labeling of 20 dietary supplement products; obtaining summary judgment and full dismissal in a class action against a major electronics retailer over sales price practices; securing voluntary dismissal of a Lanham Act competitor suit against a dietary supplement brand’s flagship product; and serving on trial teams in a federal trademark dispute, a complex Integrated Resource Plan proceeding that achieved all requested relief, and Clear Channel Outdoor’s First Amendment challenge to a tax on billboard publishers.

SESSION 1 – Plaintiff-Side Digital Marketing Class Actions | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Walk through the plaintiffs’ bar playbook across Washington CEMA post-Brown v. Old Navy, Florida FEMCA copycat filings, California CIPA wiretap and pen-register theories on Meta Pixel and session-replay tools, the VPPA circuit split, and per-violation damages math.

BREAK | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

SESSION 2 – Defending ECPA, CIPA, VPPA and Other AdTech Class Actions | 2:10pm – 3:10pm

Deploy the defensive and preventive toolkit for AdTech class actions, including statutory pixel defenses, common-law defenses, Article III standing considerations, marketing-stack audits, consent architecture, vendor contract drafting, and cross-functional compliance build and rapid-response playbooks.