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People Facebook data privacy class action overview:
- Who: A People.com consumer filed a class action lawsuit against Dotdash Meredith
- Why: The plaintiff claims Dotdash Meredith unlawfully discloses the data of its users viewing history to third parties, including Meta Platforms.
- Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in New York federal court.
Registered users of People.com who have a Facebook account are suing the publisher’s parent company, saying their video-viewing records were shared with Facebook without their consent.
Plaintiff William J. Martin filed the class action complaint against Dotdash Meredith June 7 in a New York federal court, alleging violations of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), the California Civil Code, and the consumer protection statutes of several states.
“Dotdash Meredith’s invasive disclosures violate the VPPA, which explicitly prohibits the disclosure of video-viewing records to a third party without the express written consent of the consumer of the video,” the lawsuit states.
Martin alleges that, nearly one million times a day, Dotdash Meredith serves video content on its People.com website to its website visitors.
However, unbeknownst to the viewers of these videos, Dotdash Meredith allegedly has a hidden agenda: tracking and recording each viewer’s video-consumption habits, and sharing that information with Facebook, and potentially other third parties.
“Every time a Registered User views video content on People.com, Dotdash Meredith causes the identity of the viewer and the titles of the videos viewed to be shared with Facebook,” Martin alleges.
Millions of privacy violations likely, lawsuit states
Martin says People.com records 29 million video views every month, and therefore it is likely it commits hundreds of millions of privacy violations annually by sharing video-viewing records without the express written consent of the viewer.
He says the company carries out the alleged violations through a code called the Facebook Pixel which tracks and records viewers’ behavior on the websites, including behavior related to video consumption.
“This code collects video-watching history and discloses it to Facebook, and ties that information directly to the real-world identity of the viewer by disclosing the viewer’s unique Facebook ID in conjunction with the title of each video the viewer watches, contained in the website url,” he alleges.
Martin is seeking certification of the class action, damages of $2,500 per violation of the VPPA and $500 per violation of the California Civil Code, an injunction, fees, costs and a jury trial.
Earlier this month, Gannett Company was hit with a similar class action lawsuit alleging it violates data privacy law by knowingly disclosing the data of its USA Today digital subscribers to third parties, including Meta Platforms.
What do you think of the allegations in this case? Let us know in the comments!
The plaintiff is represented by Brett D. Katz of Ellis George Cipollone O’brien Annaguey LLP.
The People Facebook Class Action Lawsuit is William J. Martin v. Meredith Corporation et al., Case No. 1:22-cv-04776 in the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York
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