FOR PUBLICATION

   UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
        FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BRANDON BRISKIN, on behalf of              No. 22-15815
himself and those similarly situated,
                                         D.C. No. 4:21-cv-
               Plaintiff-Appellant,         06269-PJH

 v.
                                             OPINION
SHOPIFY, INC.; SHOPIFY (USA),
INC.; SHOPIFY PAYMENTS (USA),
INC.,

               Defendants-Appellees.


       Appeal from the United States District Court
          for the Northern District of California
       Phyllis J. Hamilton, District Judge, Presiding

          Argued and Submitted August 16, 2023
                San Francisco, California

                 Filed November 28, 2023

   Before: Consuelo M. Callahan, Bridget S. Bade, and
            Daniel A. Bress, Circuit Judges.

                  Opinion by Judge Bress
2                     BRISKIN V. SHOPIFY, INC.


                          SUMMARY *


                     Specific Jurisdiction

    The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal, due to
lack of specific personal jurisdiction over the defendants, of
a putative class action alleging that Shopify, Inc. violated
various California privacy and unfair competition laws
because it deliberately concealed its involvement in certain
consumer transactions.
    Defendants offer a web-based payment processing
platform to merchants nationwide. When processing
payments, defendants obtain the personal information of
those merchants’ customers.
    For specific jurisdiction to exist over Shopify, plaintiff’s
claim must arise out of or relate to Shopify’s forum-related
activities. The panel held that there was no causal
relationship between Shopify’s broader business contacts in
California and plaintiff’s claims because these contacts did
not cause plaintiff’s harm. Nor did plaintiff’s claims “relate
to” Shopify’s broader business activities in California
outside of its extraction and retention of plaintiff’s data.
    Because there was an insufficient relationship between
plaintiff's claims and Shopify’s broader business contacts in
California, the activities relevant to the specific jurisdiction
analysis were those that caused plaintiff’s injuries: Shopify’s
collection, retention, and use of consumer data obtained


*
 This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                    BRISKIN V. SHOPIFY, INC.                  3


from persons who made online purchases while in
California.
    The panel held that Shopify, which provides nationwide
web-based payment processing services to online merchants,
did not expressly aim its conduct toward California. The
panel held that plaintiff’s California connection—plaintiff
resides in California and was physically located in California
when he used Shopify’s e-commerce payment system—did
not matter to the analysis of whether Shopify expressly
aimed its activities toward California. When analyzing
whether a court has personal jurisdiction over a web-based
payment processor in a suit alleging the unlawful extraction,
retention, and sharing of consumer data, the legal framework
and principles that should be brought to bear are those found
in the court’s personal jurisdiction cases involving
interactive websites. Applying those principles to this case,
the panel held that Shopify did not expressly aim its suit-
related conduct toward California.
    The panel held that the district court’s effective denial of
plaintiff’s request for jurisdictional discovery of Shopify
was not an abuse of discretion.


                         COUNSEL

Nicolas A. Sansone (argued), Allison M. Zieve, and Scott L.
Nelson, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, D.C.;
Seth A. Safier, Matthew T. McCrary, and Todd Kennedy,
Gutride Safier LLP, San Francisco, California; for Plaintiff-
Appellant.
Moez Kaba (argued), Hueston Hennigan LLP, Los Ange