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Sex

Ottawa Vibrator Company That Tracked Your Jerking Habits Will Pay $3.75 Million Settlement

Makers of the We-Vibe have also agreed to delete all the sex toy–related personal info they stored without users' consent.

The first time I heard about the We-Vibe I was in a Victoria, BC sex shop, where a 38-year-old woman told me about her search for something that could vibrate inside her as she goes about her daily tasks. She was scoping out the Canadian-made sex toy because it could be controlled remotely via her partner's phone app—a fantasy that seemed genuinely futuristic three years ago.

Now the future has truly arrived, as the sex toy maker is paying out a massive $3.75 million settlement to make a class-action lawsuit go away. Standard Innovation, the company that seemingly invented remote-control vag-zapping, is accused of spying on users without consent and breaking a bunch of privacy laws.

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A lawsuit filed in Illinois last year alleged the company was collecting "highly personal" information about its user's diddling habits, from how frequently they're taking care of business, to the intensity settings they're using in real time.

Read More: Inside the Orgasmic Life of a Sex Toy Reviewer

Last year the company claimed they were just using the data to improve user experience. They noticed many masturbators were using the highest setting, for example, which suggests people out there wanted more juice. Hmmm.

The company has admitted no wrongdoing, but has agreed to empty its Canadian servers of all the vibrator-related personal info, and stop collecting it in future.

We-Vibe app users can claim up to USD $10,000 in damages. There are roughly 300,000 users out there, about a third of which use the app. To the woman I met in Victoria, if you're out there, getting in on this cash bonanza would be the greatest act of self-love.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.