A new class action lawsuit claims PepsiCo's snack website tracked visitors without their knowledge

California resident Winston Li filed a class action lawsuit against PepsiCo Inc. on May 27, 2026, alleging the company tracked visitors to its snacks.com website without their knowledge or consent. He filed the case in the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara County.

PepsiCo owns and operates snacks.com, a direct-to-consumer site for snack products. Li says he visited the site around March 2026 after clicking a link tied to a promotion on the Frito-Lay website.

How the alleged tracking works

The lawsuit claims that the moment a visitor opens snacks.com, the site automatically and invisibly installs 67 third-party trackers on that person's browser, including 27 cookies and eight canvas fingerprints. The trackers come from technology companies like Meta, Google, Shape Security, Integral Ad Science, The Trade Desk, TikTok and Snapchat.

Cookies are small files that record what a person does on a site. Canvas fingerprints work differently and are harder to escape. The trackers reportedly capture IP addresses, device and browser details, pages viewed, time on the site, web addresses and overall browsing behavior then pass that data to five advertising networks.

The complaint singles out Meta. It alleges the Meta Pixel fingerprints the visitor's browser and sends Meta a scrambled string of characters that contain information like the visitor's email address, which lets Meta match the visit to an existing Facebook or Instagram account.

PepsiCo's opt-out banner allegedly offers false protection

The site reportedly shows visitors a cookie opt-out banner that allows them control over their data. The complaint calls it a "false and misleading sense of security."

The lawsuit claims all 67 trackers begin collecting data the instant the page loads before anyone can even read the banner. Additionally, Li contends that even if the user opts out, the site still runs 66 of the 67 trackers, including all eight canvas fingerprinting scripts, which do not rely on cookies to work.

The legal claims and possible damages

The complaint brings five causes of action against PepsiCo:

  • California Invasion of Privacy Act for unauthorized wiretapping and operating pen registers, which track the addresses of a person's communications
  • Federal Wiretap Act, which bars intercepting electronic communications without consent
  • California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act for installing tracking software on a device without permission
  • California Constitution, which names privacy as a fundamental right for state residents
  • California's Unfair Competition Law, which bars unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business practices

What the case means for snacks.com visitors

Li wants to represent two groups: a nationwide class of everyone in the United States whose data the site collected without consent and a California subclass of state residents who faced the same conduct.

No money is available now, and there is no settlement or claims process. Class counsel asked the court to certify the class, order PepsiCo to stop the data collection, delete what it gathered and award statutory damages, restitution and attorneys' fees.