PHOENIX, Oct. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lofty, an award-winning AI innovator for the real estate industry, today announced a significant legal and legislative victory following California Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature of Senate Bill 690 (SB 690) into law, eliminating the private right of action for pen register claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). SB 690 effectively ends a wave of demand letter campaigns that had threatened California businesses with hundreds of millions of dollars in potential statutory damages for standard website analytics practices. Committed to protecting its customers, Lofty filed a federal declaratory judgment action in the United States District Court for the Central district of California (Lofty, Inc. v. Shah, No. 2:26-cv-07425). With Governor Newsom’s signature, Lofty voluntarily dismissed that action. Previously, Lofty launched a CIPA Defense Program, a first of its kind legal protection initiative, providing customers with a full legal defense against meritless CIPA demand letters. Learn more about Lofty HERE.
SB 690 amends CIPA to eliminate the private right of action for alleged pen register violations under Cal. Penal Code § 638.51, which had been asserted against businesses that use third-party analytics, advertising, and tracking technologies on their websites. Previously, plaintiffs claimed that common tools such as Google Analytics, HubSpot, and similar platforms constituted illegal “pen registers,” exposing businesses to legal damages of $5,000 per violation. Under SB 690, only the California Attorney General has the right to enforce legal action, removing private litigation that had been used to obtain settlements from businesses engaging in ordinary, lawful commercial practices.
Steadfast in its commitment to the real estate industry, Lofty will continue to focus on developing innovative technology solutions, built to support agents and monitor the evolving privacy regulatory landscape to protect its customers and the integrity of its platform.
“Since our inception, we have been committed to serving the real estate industry though our agentic AI platform – one that depends on the same analytics and lead-tracking integrations that power virtually every modern website,” said Joe Chen, CEO, Lofty. “We are grateful to the California legislature for acting swiftly and to Governor Newsom for recognizing that CIPA’s pen register provisions were being exploited to undermine, rather than protect, businesses and consumers across the country.”
About Lofty Inc.
Lofty Inc. (formerly Chime Technologies) is transforming how the real estate industry leverages AI with an agentic AI operating system (AOS) designed to help real estate brokerages and their agents dramatically increase productivity and accelerate business growth. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Lofty is consistently recognized as an award-winning AI innovator. For more information on how Lofty is leading the real estate industry through the agentic AI evolution, visit lofty.com.
Media Contact: Sarah Murray sarah@attunecommunications.com
