LinkedIn Sued for Sharing Personal Information with Meta, Adobe
LinkedIn was hit with a class-action lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court for Northern California for allegedly disclosing personally identifiable information (PII) and video viewing activity to Facebook without users’ consent, in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).
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“When someone who was logged into Facebook watched a video on the [LinkedIn] Website, the Facebook Tracking Pixel transmitted PII from these Facebook cookies to Facebook along with their URL data,” said the suit. “A Facebook ID is personally identifiable information. Anyone can identify a Facebook profile -- and all personal information publicly listed on that profile -- by appending the Facebook ID to the end of facebook.com.”
Plaintiff Courtney Cole is a LinkedIn Premium subscriber and has watched several courses in the LinkedIn Learning platform through that subscription, the complaint said. Without her consent and knowledge, the complaint alleged, LinkedIn was sharing her video-watching activity and PII with Facebook through the Facebook tracking pixel.
“In addition, Defendant configured the Facebook Tracking Pixel on the Website to integrate with the Adobe Analytics platform, meaning that Defendant disclosed the video viewing activity, video watching data and PII of Plaintiff and other consumers with Adobe Inc. as well,” the complaint said. Adobe is also named in the lawsuit.