Can You Get Sued for Using Google Analytics in 2026?

Yes, and not just in California. A two-person HVAC company in the Sacramento suburbs was sued under California's wiretap law over a booking-widget tracker on its own website, with the plaintiff seeking $5,000 per website visit (KPBS, 2026). Most of this exposure runs through federal law and several states' own statutes, not California alone.

A Midwest contractor, clinic, or home services business running Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, or a chat widget has real reasons to check its own site before assuming this is someone else's problem.

Which States Actually Reach Your Website's Tracking Tools?

No single law covers every business in every state. What actually reaches a given website is a mix of that state's own wiretap or eavesdropping statute, the federal Wiretap Act (which applies everywhere), and California's Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), which plaintiffs have tried to stretch across state lines because Google and Meta process the intercepted data in California.

Confirmed litigation activity concentrates in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida; the other states below have no confirmed suit yet, which is a different thing from having no exposure.

Can an Illinois Business Get Sued Over Google Analytics?

Yes, and Illinois is currently the most active venue in the country for this exact claim outside California. Illinois federal courts are split on whether a tracking pixel qualifies for the Wiretap Act's "crime-or-tort exception," with rulings going both directions on similar facts in the same year (Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog, 2026).

In Doe v. Genesis Health System, the court rejected the exception, holding that lawful commercial advertising doesn't become "for the purpose of" a crime or tort just because it might violate a privacy law elsewhere. In Stein v. Edward-Elmhurst Health, a different court allowed HIPAA violations to satisfy that same exception, and certified the question for appeal, an explicit acknowledgment that reasonable judges disagree. A third case, Doe 1 v. Chestnut Health Systems, was dismissed for vague pleading rather than resolving the legal question at all. For a business serving Illinois, that split means the law is unsettled, not favorable.

Can an Ohio Business Get Sued Over Google Analytics?

No confirmed suit has been filed against an Ohio business specifically over analytics or pixel tracking, but that gap isn't the same as no exposure. The federal Wiretap Act applies to any website nationwide, and plaintiffs have shown willingness to bring California's CIPA against out-of-state defendants on the theory that Google processes the data in California.

That cross-state theory hasn't been tested against an Ohio business yet, but the underlying federal statute doesn't wait for a state-specific test case to apply.

Can a Missouri Business Get Sued Over Google Analytics?

The same honest answer applies here: no confirmed Missouri case exists as of this writing. Missouri has no state wiretap statute driving a documented wave the way Illinois, Pennsylvania, or Florida do, but a Missouri business running unconsented tracking scripts is still reachable under the federal Wiretap Act.

That's the same law that's already produced confirmed rulings against businesses in other states over the identical technical setup: analytics or pixel code firing before a visitor consents.

Can a Kansas Business Get Sued Over Google Analytics?

No confirmed suit has targeted a Kansas business over this issue. That gap likely reflects where plaintiffs' firms have concentrated their filings so far, not a legal carve-out for Kansas sites. The federal Wiretap Act and the contested CIPA cross-state theory both remain available tools against any U.S. website.

Litigation waves have historically moved from an initial concentration in California, then Illinois, into new states once early cases establish a workable template.

Can a Michigan Business Get Sued Over Google Analytics?

No confirmed suit exists against a Michigan business over this issue either, and Michigan's own eavesdropping statute (MCL 750.539c) has a genuine wrinkle worth understanding: a well-established participant exception lets a person record their own conversation without the other party's consent (National Law Review, 2026).

That exception, though, was written for phone calls between two people, not for a website sending visitor data to an outside analytics or ad-tech company. That mismatch between the statute's original purpose and how tracking scripts actually work is a large part of why plaintiffs nationally have gravitated toward California's CIPA or the federal Wiretap Act instead of trying a Michigan-specific claim.

Can a Wisconsin Business Get Sued Over Google Analytics?

No confirmed case has surfaced against a Wisconsin business over analytics or pixel tracking. The pattern holds: the federal Wiretap Act applies nationwide regardless of any state-specific case history, and the CIPA cross-state theory remains genuinely contested rather than settled law in either direction.

A business without a documented lawsuit in its state isn't the same as a business without exposure under the statute that's already produced confirmed rulings elsewhere.

Can a Minnesota Business Get Sued Over Google Analytics?

The same is true for Minnesota: no confirmed suit yet, but the litigation wave so far has concentrated in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida for reasons that look more like where plaintiffs' firms are based than where the underlying law does or doesn't apply.

The federal Wiretap Act doesn't require a state-specific precedent to reach a Minnesota site running unconsented tracking scripts.

What Actually Protects a Website From These Lawsuits?

The businesses avoiding these suits share four concrete practices, not a single silver-bullet tool. Consent has to gate scripts before they load, not just tag requests afterward; tracking has to stay off any page with a form; every vendor has to be named in the privacy policy; and the terms of service need an arbitration clause.

None of these require ripping out Google Analytics or Meta Pixel entirely.

1. A consent gate that blocks scripts outright until affirmative consent, not a banner that lets trackers fire by default and only labels the request afterward. Google's newer Consent Mode v2 "advanced" signal still allows a script to fire before a visitor answers the banner; it changes what gets reported, not whether the request goes out at all. A hard block that waits for a yes is a meaningfully different (and safer) architecture.
2. No session-replay tools or pixels active on any page with a form. This is exactly the setup that triggered the Folsom Lake case: a booking-widget vendor's tracker captured visitor activity on the exact page where someone was submitting personal information (KPBS, 2026).
3. A privacy policy that names every vendor, Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, any chat or replay tool, by name, rather than hiding behind a generic "third parties we work with" line.
4. An arbitration clause with a class-action waiver in the terms of service. It doesn't make a claim disappear, but it reshapes the economics of a mass-claim suit, which is most of what makes this litigation category profitable for plaintiffs' firms in the first place.

Two Pennsylvania rulings under WESCA in the same year show why the specifics matter more than the statute alone. In Muraski v. Penn Highlands Healthcare, the court dismissed the claim because the plaintiff never pleaded specifics about their own visit, calling it a "law-school hypothetical" (Inside Class Actions, 2026). In Brunecz v. Warren General Hospital, a motion to dismiss was largely denied and the Meta Pixel and Google Analytics claims proceeded on WESCA and six other counts (CourtListener, 2026). Same statute, same technology, opposite outcomes, because one plaintiff could describe exactly what happened on the site and the other couldn't. That's a warning that a well-documented, well-pleaded claim survives even where a vague one gets thrown out.

Not every state statute reaches this conduct at all. Massachusetts's highest court rejected a wiretap-style pixel claim outright in Vita v. New England Baptist Hospital, holding that the state's 1968 wiretap act doesn't clearly cover web-browsing data and that ambiguity favors the defendant (Justia, 2024). That result doesn't extend automatically to any other state's statute, but it's a reminder that "some state has a wiretap law" and "that law reaches a website's analytics tag" are two separate questions.

California Pen-Register (CIPA §638.51) Filings, Estimated Growth

Aggregate estimate cited by SB 690's author, not an annual breakdown · Source: Spencer Fane, 2026

Earlier estimate

~600

By SB 690

4,000+

That growth is the reason California lawmakers tried to intervene at all, and the reason this category of lawsuit isn't slowing down on its own.

California's SB 690 is the most relevant pending change, and it's worth being precise about what it actually does. As of this writing, the bill was enrolled on August 31, 2026 after passing both chambers, and has not yet been signed or vetoed; the governor's deadline is September 30, 2026 (California Legislative Information; Goodwin, 2026). Even if signed, SB 690 removes only the private right of action for Section 638.51 pen-register claims, the category charted above, operative January 1, 2027 (Goodwin, 2026), and shifts enforcement of that narrow slice to the state attorney general. It does nothing to Section 631 wiretap claims, which is the statute actually behind the Folsom Lake-style suits described at the top of this article (Spencer Fane, 2026). A Midwest business shouldn't read any outcome on SB 690 as "California fixed this."

How Untap Web Builds Consent Into Every Site

Every site Untap Web operates today ships a consent gate that blocks Google Analytics from loading until a visitor affirmatively consents, honors Google's Consent Mode v2 signals, and respects the browser-level Global Privacy Control signal automatically. That's the difference between a cookie banner that exists for show and one that actually stops a script from firing. It's part of how we approach web design for every client, not an add-on that only shows up if a client asks for it, and it's baked into both the Stand Up and Growth plans from day one rather than sold as a separate compliance package.

The Bottom Line

This litigation wave has moved well beyond California and well beyond hospitals and health systems. A two-person HVAC company got sued over a booking-widget tracker, which is a reminder that the size of the business has never been the deciding factor: the deciding factor is whether a script fired before a visitor consented. Fixing that is a technical decision, not a legal one, and it's the same fix regardless of which of the states above eventually produces the next confirmed case. Google Analytics and Meta Pixel aren't the problem by themselves; running them without a real consent gate is. If lead-form compliance is also on your list, our TCPA guide for service business lead forms covers the separate rules around calling and texting the leads those forms generate, and our ADA compliance guide covers the third major legal exposure a small business website carries today. And if you want all seven compliance areas in one place, we're publishing a full small business website compliance checklist in December 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.