NBA Discloses Video Viewing Information to Facebook Class Action

This digital privacy class action brings suit against the National Basketball Association (NBA), alleging that it violated the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) by disclosing Personal Viewing Information of its NBA.com website visitors to Meta, Inc., or Facebook, without their consent. The complaint alleges that the NBA collects this information and shares it through the use of cookies, software development kits (SDKs), and pixels, in particular the Facebook pixel.

The class for this action is all persons in the US who have a digital subscription to an online website owned or operated by the NBA who had their Personal Viewing Information disclosed to Facebook by the NBA.

The complaint outlines the law this way: “The VPPA prohibits ‘video tape service providers,’ such as NBA.com, from knowingly disclosing consumers’ personally identifiable information, including ‘information which identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services from a video tape provider,’ without express consent in a stand-alone consent form.”

The Facebook pixel is a bit of code that can be installed on websites like NBA.com or its app that can track and disclose to Facebook what videos subscribers view, along with the subscribers’ Facebook ID (FID).

Significantly, this information—the videos viewed and the viewer’s FID—is shared with Facebook as a single data point. The complaint alleges, “Because the digital subscriber’s FID uniquely identifies an individual’s Facebook user account, Facebook—or any other ordinary person—can use it to quickly and easily locate, access, and view digital subscribers’ corresponding Facebook profile.” In other words, the pixel discloses the videos on NBA.com watched by specific viewers.

According to the complaint, the process is invisible to viewers, who are not even aware that this information sharing is taking place.

In registering for NBA.com, users sign up for a newsletter, giving the NBA their email addresses and other personal information. The complaint alleges that the users are not told that their Personal Viewing Information at the site or on the app will be disclosed to others, and that they are not asked for their consent to this disclosure.

When they come to the site after that, and watch videos on the NBA’s digital platform, they are still not told that information about what they’ve watched will be shared with others or asked for consent. The complaint claims that this is also not disclosed in NBA.com’s Terms of Service or Privacy Policy.

The complaint alleges that the NBA profits from providing this information to Facebook, and that Facebook uses the information to show the user targeted advertising.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: Collecting Personal Data Without Notice/Consent, Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties, Using Your Private Information Without Consent, Your Privacy