Zee5 Subscribers’ Personal Data Secretly Shared with Third Parties, Class Action Says

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action alleges global media company Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited and U.S.-based subsidiary Asia TV USA Limited illegally share website and app users’ personal data with numerous third parties without consent.

Want to stay in the loop on class actions that matter to you? Sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.

According to the 91-page lawsuit, testing by a private research company in 2023 revealed that the companies “intentionally” transmit to third parties the private information and video-viewing behavior of those who subscribe to the Zee5 mobile app and Zee5.com. The suit claims that, by doing so, the defendants directly violate the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits a “video tape service provider” from disclosing consumers’ personal data without express written consent.

The case relays that Asia TV manages the U.S.-based operations of co-defendant Zee Entertainment, an Indian company whose streaming service provides access to thousands of South Asian and Hindi movies, TV shows and other content. The complaint alleges that the companies have integrated into the Zee5 app and website certain tracking tools and back-end application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow third parties to automatically collect user data for analytics and marketing purposes.

With respect to the mobile app, the defendants have incorporated at least four APIs operated by third-party vendors AppsFlyer, CleverTap, Conviva and Mixpanel, the filing contends. As the lawsuit tells it, when a user with a paid Zee5 premium subscription views a prerecorded video on the app, the defendants disclose to third parties the consumer’s full name, email address, gender, age and certain account IDs. In addition, the titles and IDs of any videos they watch are also transmitted via the third-party APIs, the suit shares.

The case further charges that the companies have embedded tracking tools, including the Meta pixel, into Zee5.com in order to record and share subscribers’ data with Facebook, among others. According to the complaint, the Meta pixel and APIs integrated into the website automatically disclose a user’s last name, email address, phone number, unique Meta account ID and Zee5 ID alongside the URLs and titles of any videos they watch.

In short, the various tracking and analytics tools incorporated into the Zee5 app and website share with third parties enough information about a user to specifically identify them and link them to their video-viewing behavior, the filing stresses.

The lawsuit argues that “it is abundantly clear” that Zee Entertainment and Asia TV “knowingly” disclose users’ private data to outside vendors while at no point seeking consumers’ consent to do so.

“[C]ommon sense dictates that ‘the world’s largest streaming platform for South Asian content,’ which incorporates multiple APIs in its app and the Meta tracking pixel into its website—all of which are focused on marketing, advertising, and analytics—is fully aware of the scope of the data the third parties are collecting and are choosing to intentionally provide that data to the third parties,” the case contends.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States who created a premium (paid) account and watched prerecorded videos on the Zee5 app or Zee5.com during the applicable statute of limitations period.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.