Setting up a waxing appointment online doesn’t seem like anything special. You go to a website, pick a time, and maybe type in your name and email address. Then you go about your day. Most people don’t think about it, and they shouldn’t have to. What they should think about is whether the site is quietly giving third parties parts of that interaction before the page even loads.
At least that’s what a class action lawsuit against European Wax Center said. The company now has a $5 million settlement offer, so they’ve decided to end the case instead of going to court.
The lawsuit said that European Wax Center put tracking technologies on its website, such as the widely criticized Meta Pixel, that stole visitors’ private information and gave it to other companies without their knowledge or permission. Anyone who went to www.waxcenter.com between June 30, 2023, and April 2, 2026, including people who made appointments online during that time, was said to have been tracked. The business has said it did nothing wrong, but it agreed to the settlement to avoid the costs and trouble of going to court again. That’s a pretty common stance for businesses to take in this case. It doesn’t mean guilt, but it also doesn’t feel like justice either.
On April 2, 2026, the settlement was given preliminary court approval. If you lived in the U.S. and visited the site during that time, you are a Settlement Class Member. This means that you may be able to get up to $10 in cash if you file a valid claim form by September 25, 2026. The money won’t change your life. But the bigger problem is more important than the amount of money.
At the heart of this case is the Meta Pixel, a small piece of code that businesses put on their websites to track how people use them for advertising purposes. Many different types of businesses use it, and it’s gotten more than just European Wax Center into legal trouble. Hospitals, stores, and financial services firms have all been criticized for using it in ways that some say blur the line between marketing analytics and invasions of privacy. At best, it’s not clear that people who clicked around on a beauty services website really knew what they were doing. Most people think that making an appointment for hair removal is a pretty simple process.
Take a moment to think about that. The way most people think about these interactions—that they’re just making an appointment—becomes more and more at odds with how modern websites work. Behavior data can be sent to other places by code that is running in the background and can’t be seen before the user clicks “confirm.” Litigations like this one usually start when there is a difference between what people expect and what they get.
Everyone in the class who wants to get their money needs to fill out a claim form and send it in, either online or by mail. The last hearing to approve the settlement is set for September 28, 2026. People have until June 30, 2026, to say no to the terms of the settlement or to be left out of it. If you choose to opt out, you will not be charged any money, but you will still be able to take legal action on your own.
It’s still not clear how many claims will be filed in the end, which will determine how much each person gets paid. With a $5 million fund and maybe millions of visitors who could be eligible, it would be easy to lower the $10 limit even more.
What is less uncertain is where lawsuits over consumer privacy are going. Suits like the one against the European Wax Center are no longer rare exceptions. As more and more people do business online, these issues keep coming up. This is putting pressure on businesses to be more careful about what they collect, from whom, and why. We still don’t know if that pressure is enough to really change how people in the industry act. That’s it for now. People who have been to waxcenter.com in the past few years have until late September to decide if $10 is worth it.
