Ashley Milano  |  September 6, 2016

Category: Consumer News

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USA-Today-AppGannett must face a class action lawsuit alleging it violates a video privacy law by allegedly sending a third party data-analytics company personal information about people who downloaded its USA Today app.

U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV denied Gannett’s motion to dismiss the class action lawsuit brought by plaintiff Alexander Yershov who alleges that the publisher’s USA Today app for Android violates the Video Privacy Protection Act by transmitting device identifiers, geolocation data and video viewing history to Adobe.

The VPPA prohibits video companies from sharing personally identifiable information about “subscribers” with third parties.

“The [Video Privacy Protection Act] plainly provides plaintiffs like Yershov, who allege wrongful disclosure of their [personally identifiable information], with standing and a right to relief,” Judge Saylor said, noting that “the intangible harm allegedly suffered by Yershov from Gannett’s alleged disclosure of his PII is a concrete injury in fact.”

Yershov filed the class action lawsuit in 2014, specifically alleging that every time he watches a video through the App, Gannett provides the unique identification number of his smartphone to Adobe Systems Inc., a third-party data-analytics company as well as GPS coordinates of the mobile device.

By doing so, Yershov contends Gannet violates users’ rights to privacy under the VPPA.

In Sept. 2014, Gannett argued that the case should be dismissed at an early stage for two reasons. The company argued that Android device identifiers — a string of numbers unique to each device — are not personally identifiable information. The company also argued that the video privacy law only applies to users who are considered “subscribers” to a service.

The Court granted Gannett’s motion and dismissed the lawsuit.

But, Yerhsov appealed the ruling to the First Circuit and won a reversal concluding that he and other consumers were indeed “subscribers” under the VPPA.

In response to the Appeals Court decision, Gannett again moved to dismiss the case, arguing that Yershov fails to allege how he has suffered a concrete injury in fact necessary to establish standing.

Following Gannett’s motion to dismiss, both parties argued over the application of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Spokeo v. Robins to this case.

In Spokeo, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “to establish injury in fact, a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered ‘an invasion of a legally protected interest’ that is ‘concrete and particularized’ and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.'”

Gannett argued that the complaint must be dismissed because it fails to allege “anything more than a ‘bare procedural violation’ of the VPPA.”

But Judge Saylor disagreed with Gannett’s interpretation of Spokeo and ruled in favor of Yershov, noting that “by enacting the VPPA, [Congress] elevated an otherwise nonactionable invasion of privacy into a concrete, legally cognizable injury.”

Yershov is represented by Benjamin Richman and J. Dominick Larry of Edelson PC.

The USA Today App Video Privacy Class Action Lawsuit is Yershov v. Gannett Satellite Information Network Inc., Case No. 1:14-cv-13112, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

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One thought on Gannett Must Face USA Today App Video Privacy Class Action Lawsuit

  1. angel wright porter says:

    Gannett has never paid me a penny of my husband s pension plan from where he died eight years ago …I was the beneficiary for the plan and I had a 1’500.00 met life life insurance policy that was filed at the same time and the met life policy paid me but Gannett refused to file my claim after he worked for the Detroit news paper for a good twenty years as a diesel mechanic until he got hurt on the job and had to retire early ..we were married 14 years and when he died I was left with nothing angel wright porter

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