Chorki Unlawfully Discloses Subscribers’ Personal Data to Third Parties, Class Action Claims
Hossain et al. v. Mediastar Limited et al.
Filed: February 16, 2024 ◆§ 1:24-cv-01201
A class action claims Chorki has unlawfully shared website and app users’ personal data with Facebook, Google and other third parties without consent.
New York
A proposed class action claims the operators of Chorki have unlawfully shared website and app users’ personal data with Facebook, Google, Amazon and other third parties without consent.
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According to the 64-page lawsuit, a 2023 analysis by a private research company revealed that Mediastar Limited and parent company Transcom Limited knowingly disclose to third parties the private information and video-viewing behavior of individuals who subscribe to Chorki, a popular Bangladeshi video streaming platform. The suit alleges that by doing so, the companies have breached the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which bars a “video tape service provider” from sharing consumers’ personal information without express consent.
The case contends that the defendants have incorporated certain web-tracking tools into Chorki.com and the mobile app that allow third parties to automatically capture user data for analytics and marketing purposes.
When a subscriber uses the website or app to search for or watch a video, the tracking technology—which includes Facebook’s Meta pixel, Google Analytics, Amazon Web Services and numerous other back-end software tools—shares enough data with the third parties to link the specific user to their video-viewing preferences, the complaint relays.
Per the filing, the tracking software discloses personal information such as a consumer’s full name, email address, IP address and the titles and URLs of any videos they watch, among other identifiers.
“Crucially, [the defendants] do not contest that these disclosures are occurring,” the suit says. “On the contrary, [the defendants] admit in their Privacy Policy that they are knowingly and deliberately disclosing this information to the various third parties.”
Nonetheless, the case charges that the media companies have violated the VPPA by failing to obtain consent before sharing users’ private information with unrelated third parties.
The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States who used the Chorki mobile app to watch videos and had their personal information transmitted to a third party without consent.
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