Class Action Alleges People.com Secretly Shares Video Viewer Info with Facebook
Martin v. Meredith Corporation et al.
Filed: June 7, 2022 ◆§ 1:22-cv-04776
The companies who operate People.com face a class action that alleges the website secretly tracks and records visitors’ video-viewing habits and shares the data with Facebook.
The companies that operate People.com face a proposed class action that alleges the entertainment and celebrity gossip website secretly tracks and records visitors’ video-viewing habits and shares the data with Facebook.
The 44-page case says that each time a registered People.com user watches video content on the site, defendant Dotdash Meredith, Inc. shares the person’s identity and the titles of the videos they’ve watched with Facebook, and potentially other third parties, without consent to do so.
“Dotdash Meredith’s under-the-table trafficking in this sensitive information of Registered Users is not just an affront to their privacy rights: it is a violation of numerous federal and state laws,” the complaint alleges.
The suit describes the extent of Dotdash Meredith’s alleged video-viewing data collection as “staggering.” According to the case, the company has said that People.com records 29 million video views each month.
“Accordingly,” the lawsuit says, “Dotdash annually commits hundreds of millions of privacy violations by sharing video-viewing records without the express written consent of the viewer.”
Per the filing, the company accomplishes this through the use of a Facebook tracking pixel built into the website’s code. This pixel, in conjunction with other cookies, according to the case, tracks and records a consumer’s behavior on People.com and discloses the data to Facebook, allowing the social media company to tie the information directly to a person’s real-world identity via their unique Facebook ID. With a unique Facebook ID, anyone can look up a user’s Facebook profile, the suit adds.
The lawsuit alleges defendants Dotdash Meredith, Meredith Corporation, Meredith Holdings Corporation, media conglomerate IAC/Interactivecorp and Dotdash Media, Inc. have violated the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and the consumer protection statutes of several states. The VPPA, the suit states, was enacted by Congress to protect from disclosure information relating to the videos a person views.
At no point during the People.com registration process are users required to consent or opt in to any of Dotdash Meredith’s policies, including those concerning the tracking of their behavior on the website, the case asserts.
The lawsuit looks to cover all registered users of People.com in the United States with a Facebook account who viewed a video on People.com.
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