MeTV Secretly Discloses Users’ Personal Info to Meta Without Consent, Class Action Alleges

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A proposed class action alleges MeTV has violated a federal privacy law by failing to obtain digital subscribers’ consent before sharing their personal information with Meta Platforms.

The 17-page case claims that MeTV, a television network who offers access to classic TV programs and other videos on MeTV.com, has run afoul of the Video Privacy Protection Act, a federal law that prohibits “video tape service providers” from knowingly disclosing information that “identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services” without obtaining consent from the individual in a standalone form.

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According to the suit, MeTV uses a tracking tool known as the Meta pixel to gather data about its subscribers, including certain identifying details and the titles of videos they’ve watched on MeTV.com, and shares the information with Facebook. Per the suit, subscribers are never informed of, much less asked to consent to, MeTV’s data-sharing practices, and have had their video viewing histories, information they “reasonably expected would be kept private,” unlawfully shared with a third party.

The lawsuit explains that advertisers such as MeTV use the Meta pixel to track how visitors use their websites and learn information that will help them better target their advertisements. 

“Thus, a business such as MeTV chooses to install the Pixel on its website in order to increase its profits,” the complaint relays.

Meta, for its part, benefits from MeTV’s alleged use of the pixel in that businesses who use the tracking tool have a greater incentive to advertise on Facebook or other Meta-owned platforms, the filing states. Moreover, the social media giant can also use the information gathered through the pixel to “build[] more fulsome profiles of its own users” and thus improve its ad-targeting abilities, the suit says.

The Meta pixel on MeTV.com collects subscribers’ personal information, such as their IP address, name, email or phone number, and the titles of videos they watch on the website, the case claims. Moreover, the suit says the pixel tracks each subscriber’s Facebook ID, a unique identifier that links directly to a person’s Facebook profile, which contains “a wide range of demographic and other information about the user,” including pictures, interests, work history and relationship status.

According to the case, the Meta pixel discloses each user’s Facebook ID and video-viewing history to Meta “together in a single transmission,” providing the social media giant with enough information to easily link an individual Facebook user with the video content they’ve viewed on MeTV.com.

The suit alleges that although MeTV’s website includes terms of service and a privacy policy, neither of these documents informs users that the network will share their personal information and video-viewing history with Meta “in a way that allows Meta to identify their specific video-watching preferences.”

The three plaintiffs, who each subscribe to MeTV and use Facebook, claim to have seen targeted advertisements on Facebook after watching related videos on MeTV.com.

The suit looks to represent anyone in the United States who subscribed to MeTV, viewed prerecorded content on MeTV.com, and used Facebook during the time that Meta’s pixel was active on MeTV.com.

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