Us Weekly Lawsuit Investigation: Attorneys Look into Potential Privacy Violations

Attorneys working with ClassAction.org are investigating whether a class action lawsuit can be filed on behalf of Us Weekly magazine subscribers over potential privacy violations.

It’s believed that the magazine’s owner may have used a tracking tool called the Meta pixel on its website to secretly gather data about these individuals – specifically, their Facebook IDs and details about the videos they’ve watched on UsMagazine.com – and passed this data along to Meta without each person’s informed, written consent.

Attorneys suspect that the website’s operator may have violated the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) by sharing consumers’ private information without permission.

How Could Us Weekly Be Sharing Data with Facebook?

Many website operators gather data about the people who visit their websites by using an invisible tracking tool called the Meta (formerly known as Facebook) pixel.

The pixel, which can be embedded on any webpage, can be programmed to record every action a visitor takes, such as the buttons they click, the searches they perform and the content they view.

In the case of UsMagazine.com, attorneys are specifically looking into whether the website is tracking which videos its users have watched and sending that information to Meta along with each person’s Facebook ID. A Facebook ID is a unique identifier linked to an individual’s Facebook profile and could potentially be used to match up a specific person with the videos they’ve watched on Us Weekly’s website.

In general, the data collected by a website through the Meta pixel can be used by both the website operator and the social media giant to better target advertisements to their users.

It’s believed that Us Weekly’s suspected data sharing practices may violate the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits “video tape service providers” from disclosing to third parties any information that identifies the video materials a person has requested or watched without their consent.

How Could a Class Action Lawsuit Help?

A class action lawsuit, if filed and successful, could help Us Weekly subscribers get back money for potential privacy violations.

Though there are no guarantees as to how much money each person could get through a class action lawsuit, the VPPA provides that companies may be responsible for paying consumers $2,500 for violations of the law.

A lawsuit could also potentially force Us Weekly’s owner to change its data privacy practices.

What You Can Do

After you get in touch, an attorney or legal representative may reach out to you directly to tell you more about how you may be able to help get a class action lawsuit started. It costs nothing to fill out the form or talk to someone about your legal options, and you’re not obligated to take legal action if you don’t want to.

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