6th Circuit Takes Narrow View of VPPA Definitions in Increasingly Split Landscape
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Thursday with a district court decision and dismissed a case alleging violations of the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), taking a narrow view of what it means to be a "consumer." However, one of the three judges, Rachel Bloomekatz, issued a dissent from most of the decision.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
"The full definition of 'consumer' in the statute does not encompass consumers of all 'goods or services' imaginable, but only those 'from a video tape service provider,'” said Judge John Nalbandian. "So the most natural reading, which accounts for the context of both definitions, shows that a person is a 'consumer' only when he subscribes to 'goods or services' in the nature of 'video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials.'"
Michael Salazar filed the class-action complaint against Paramount Global, alleging the media company deployed the Facebook tracking pixel on 247Sports.com, a Paramount-owned website, and disclosed his video viewing history to the social media platform without Salazar's knowledge or consent. Salazar claimed he was a consumer and subscriber under VPPA as he signed up for a newsletter from 247Sports.com. The U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee concluded that was not so and dismissed his suit for lack of standing.
The case was the latest decision in a recent string of appeals court rulings concerning the VPPA.
The 6th Circuit's decision holds with the 9th Circuit's ruling (see 2503270053), but breaks with the 7th Circuit's decision (see 2503310018) and the 2nd Circuit's decision, which is on appeal (see 2503190047). Privacy lawyers predicted the number of cases under the VPPA to continue to grow after the 2nd Circuit's October ruling in Salazar v. NBA (see 2501100009).