The National Football League, Warner Brothers Discovery and Buzzfeed have become the latest big targets for class action lawsuits under a federal privacy law, accusing the entertainment properties of improperly sharing with Facebook information about the video viewing habits of American subscribers to the Huffington Post, CNN.com and NFL.com.
Attorneys filed suit on Sept. 12 against Warner Bros. and Buzzfeed and on Sept. 14 against the NFL in Chicago federal court.
The lawsuit against Buzzfeed was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Brittney Wright, while the suit against Warner Bros. is led by named plaintiff Chantele Ganaway.
The lawsuit against the NFL was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Israel James.
All the lead plaintiffs are identified as residents of Illinois.
The lawsuits seek to expand the actions to include potentially millions of others who hold video subscriptions through the companies to their news and entertainment sites.
The plaintiffs are all represented in the cases by attorneys with the firms of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise, of Chicago; and Bailey & Glasser, of Chicago and Washington, D.C.
The lawsuits are the latest filed against online entertainment providers for allegedly sharing user data with social media company Meta, through its primary platform, Facebook.
The complaint takes aim at the companies for allegedly allowing their news and entertainment sites to host Facebook’s so-called Tracking Pixel. The technology allegedly automatically transmits data to Facebook concerning how subscribers use the video content the companies host at their sites, according to the complaints.
Further, the complaints assert the data is anonymous “non-personally identifiable data,” but instead is “tied to unique identifiers that track specific Facebook users.
This, in turn, allegedly allows Facebook to bolster and round out the collection of personalized data it holds on individual Facebook account holders, “allowing it (Facebook) to make a direct connection – without the consent of its digital subscribers and to the detriment of their legally protected privacy rights.”
The complaints assert users are never properly informed by the news and entertainment providers that their viewing habits are being shared with Facebook.
The complaints claim the Facebook tracking pixel is not needed to operate the sites or to register subscribers. Rather, the tracking program is in place “for the sole purpose of enriching Defendants and Facebook,” the complaint said.
The complaints claim this alleged unauthorized tracking and disclosure by the companies violates the federal Video Privacy Protection Act. They assert the VPPA specifically forbids video service providers, like NFL.com, the Huffington Post and CNN, from sharing customers’ viewing history and habits with others, like Facebook, without consent.
According to the complaint against the NFL, the named plaintiff, Israel James, has subscribed to NFL.com since 2016, and has accessed NFL video content on the site and the NFL app throughout that time.
Ganaway has subscribed to CNN.com since 2010.
And Wright has subscribed to Buzzfeed’s Huffington Post since the mid- to late 2000s.
The complaints assert the plaintiffs never authorized the NFL, Buzzfeed or Warner Bros. to allegedly share or disclose their personal viewing behavior with anyone else, including Facebook, in a way that could identify them individually.
According to the complaints, the plaintiffs claim they were not aware their viewing habits were allegedly being tracked and shared, until August 2022.
The complaint seeks to expand the action to include potentially hundreds of thousands of other current and former subscribers those properties, who plaintiffs allege may have also had their viewing behavior tracked and disclosed to Facebook.
Facebook and Meta are not named as defendants in the lawsuit.
The complaints are similar to others, including a lawsuit filed against Paramount in July. That lawsuit, brought by other plaintiffs and lawyers, accuses Paramount of similarly sharing viewers’ CBS.com viewing data with Facebook through the Tracking Pixel program.
All of the lawsuits seek potentially big paydays, as they request damages of $2,500 per violation, plus punitive damages and attorney fees.
Lawyers representing James, Ganaway and Wright and the potential plaintiffs’ classes in the lawsuits against the NFL, Buzzfeed and Warner Bros. include: Brandon M. Wise and Adam Florek, of the Peiffer Wolf firm; and Patrick Muench and Michael L. Murphy, of Bailey & Glasser.