Law firms Shamis & Gentile and Edelsberg Law filed two class actions Wednesday alleging two major media companies are guilty of Video Privacy Protection Act wrongdoing. Plaintiff Michelle Harris-Shields of Fayette County, Kentucky, alleged in her complaint (docket 1:23-cv-00851) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York that DotDash Meredith, publisher of Entertainment Weekly and owner of the EW.com website, violated the VPPA by disclosing its digital subscribers’ personal viewing without their proper consent. Hernando County, Florida, plaintiff Gloria Talley, in her class action (docket 8:23-cv-00215) in the Middle District of Florida in Tampa, alleges virtually identical conduct on the part of iHeartMedia, owner of iHeart.com. Both companies are “video tape service providers” under the scope of the VPPA, which prohibits them from knowingly disclosing consumers’ personally identifiable information without “express consent in a stand-alone consent form,” say the two complaints. The defendants use the personal viewing information “to build more targeted advertising” on their websites, in turn generating “greater revenue” and profits, they say. In each case, the defendant “reaps these secret profits at the expense of its digital subscribers’ privacy and their statutory rights under VPPA,” say the complaints. They seek injunctive relief, restitution and statutory and punitive damages. Neither DotDash Meredith nor iHeartMedia commented Thursday.

Apple seeks to transfer a privacy class action, Serrano v. Apple, to U.S. District Court for Northern California from Eastern Pennsylvania under the first-filed rule, said its unopposed motion Tuesday (docket 2:23-cv-00070). Libman v. Apple (docket 5:22-cv-7069), filed Nov. 10, involves “substantially similar” subject matter, said the motion. The cases assert invasion of privacy and unjust enrichment claims.

Defendant Meta filed an administrative motion in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco Tuesday asking U.S. District Judge William Orrick to consider adding two more related class actions to Pixel healthcare privacy class actions already consolidated under him. Plaintiffs in Naugle et al. v. Meta Platforms and the consolidated action Meta Pixel Healthcare Litigation have no objection to the motion to relate, the motion (docket 1:22-cv-4548) said. Last month, Orrick granted a motion to relate C.C. v. Meta Platforms to the action, making it the eighth class action under the consolidation (see 2301100005). The consolidated action and the Naugle case define “overlapping putative classes, name Meta as a defendant, involve similar facts, and involve similar causes of action,” said the defendant. The plaintiffs bring parallel claims: seeking to represent a class of hospital website and online patient portals alleging their data was collected by Meta through the Pixel tool and asserting privacy-related claims against the company, the motion said.

Google creates and possesses a “digital dossier on millions of consumers,” detailing the rental histories of viewing activity on Google Play, Google TV, Android TV, YouTube and YouTube TV, in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act and Minnesota and New York privacy statutes, alleged a consolidated amended class action Friday (docket 4:22-cv-05652) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose. The new complaint is an amalgamation of three similarly structured class actions, and it adopts the docket number of the first-filed case Sept. 30 by plaintiff Burke Minahan in Oakland. The two other class actions that followed were filed Oct. 4 by Moshe Torczyner (docket 5:22-cv-05713) in San Jose (see 2210070014) and Nov. 22 by David Landfair and Samuel Gershman (docket 5:22-cv-7427) in San Jose. In “direct contravention” of the protections afforded to consumers in Minnesota and New York, Google retains its video-viewing records “indefinitely,” said the complaint. The personally identifiable information (PII) records it maintains include “a detailed account of the specific video materials and services each consumer requested or obtained,” it said. Google doesn't destroy consumers’ PII “as soon as practicable,” it said. “Google does not even destroy consumers’ PII within one year from the date the information is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.”

Putative class-action Video Privacy Protection Act claims against HBO will be dismissed and the case will proceed into arbitration, said a U.S. District Court in Manhattan judge in an order Friday (docket 1:22-cv-01942). The order also stayed the case pending the arbitration and denied a motion to appoint class counsel from the plaintiffs, two HBO Max subscribers who argue HBO gave information about their viewing behavior to Facebook without consent (see 2205020055). The subscribers agreed to arbitration and waived class action as part of the terms of use they agreed to when buying HBO Max subscriptions, the opinion said. The subscribers argued they weren’t bound by those terms because they bought them through a third party, but the court ruled they were given an opportunity to review them when they registered for HBO Max: “That they may not have done so is irrelevant; the terms were conspicuously presented for their review.”

U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco signed an order Wednesday (docket 3:22-cv-03580) denying Meta’s Jan. 9 administrative motion to consider relating two tax-filing Pixel privacy cases to the eight Pixel healthcare privacy cases consolidated under his watch. Orrick’s sparse order gave no explanation for his denial. In a text-only docket entry Wednesday, he assigned the consolidated Pixel healthcare cases to U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia DeMarchi for discovery. The plaintiffs in the two tax-filing cases, Doe v. Meta (3:22-cv-07557) and Calderon v. Meta (5:22-cv-09149), opposed relating their cases to the Pixel healthcare litigation (see 2301110038). The tax filing and healthcare cases have in common Meta and its Pixel technology, but the Pixel, a code snippet, is customizable, said their opposition. Website developers choose which types of user actions to measure, then program the Pixel accordingly, it said. As a result, discovery in the healthcare and tax-filing litigation “will only partially overlap,” it said.

Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall’s use of facial recognition technology could violate human rights law, said New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in a letter to the venues’ owner MSG Entertainment Tuesday requesting information on the company’s use of facial recognition technology to prohibit legitimate ticketholders from entering their venues. The company reportedly used facial recognition tech to identify and deny entry to all lawyers affiliated with firms representing clients in pending litigation against it, which could violate local, state and federal human rights laws, said the letter. James also questioned whether the facial recognition software used by MSG “is reliable” and what safeguards are in place to avoid bias and discrimination. “To be clear," MSG's policy "does not unlawfully prohibit anyone from entering our venues and it is not our intent to dissuade attorneys from representing plaintiffs in litigation against us," emailed an MSG spokesperson Wednesday. "We are merely excluding a small percentage of lawyers only during active litigation. Most importantly, to even suggest anyone is being excluded based on the protected classes identified in state and federal civil rights laws is ludicrous. Our policy has never applied to attorneys representing plaintiffs who allege sexual harassment or employment discrimination.”

A new class action alleging misuse of the Pixel tracking tool on H&R Block, TaxAct and other tax-preparation websites was filed Monday against Meta in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. When a customer communicates with the tax-preparation website and Pixel is present on the customer portal login page, the Facebook Pixel source code “causes the exact content of the communication” to be redirected to Facebook, alleged plaintiffs Crystal Craig, Tiffany Bryant and Sait Kurmangaliyev in their complaint (docket 3:23-cv-00315). The communication is conveyed to Facebook “in a fashion that identifies them as a tax filer and sends filers’ tax-return data to Meta without their consent and in violation of federal law,” it said. Meta didn’t comment Tuesday. The plaintiffs in two similar tax filing website cases against the Pixel tracking tool in the same San Francisco court oppose Meta’s request to consider whether their cases should be related to and consolidated with the consolidated Meta Pixel healthcare cases (see 2301110038).

U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo for Northern Illinois in Chicago set a Feb. 10 deadline for plaintiff Cynthia Redd to respond to defendant Amazon Web Services’ motion to dismiss her Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act class action (see 2301180009), said a clerk’s docket entry Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-06779). The AWS reply is due Feb. 24, it said. Redd alleges Wonolo, an app-based job placement company, used the AWS cloud-based software service Rekognition to verify the identities of Wonolo users who interacted with its app. By providing the Rekognition service to Wonolo, AWS violated the BIPA by possessing the plaintiff’s biometric data without developing and adhering to a publicly available retention and deletion schedule, Redd alleges. AWS’ motion to dismiss said her claims fail on multiple levels, asserting Redd doesn't allege she interacted with AWS in any way, or that AWS was even aware of her use of Wonolo.

“Additional provisions” are to be written into the FTC’s proposed stipulated order for permanent injunction and civil penalty judgment against Epic Games for violating children’s privacy law (see 2212190064), said a text order Thursday (docket 5:22-CV-00518) from U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle for Eastern North Carolina in Elizabeth City. Boyle wants the proposed order to require that he be given notice when third-party privacy assessors are appointed to enforce the injunction, said his order. He also wants copies of the third-party assessments to be filed with the court. The Dec. 19 proposed order gives the FTC sole oversight of the privacy assessments, with no role for the court. Boyle gave no indication he will have a say in the assessor's selection, only that he wants to be told who it is. The assessments are to be done initially and every two years thereafter, says the proposed order. For each assessment, Epic will send the name, affiliation and qualifications of the proposed assessor to the associate director for enforcement in the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, says the proposed order. That individual will have sole authority to approve the assessor, it says. Boyle gave the parties until Feb. 2 to file an updated proposed order for his review that incorporates the additional provisions. Epic agreed to a record-breaking $520 million settlement to resolve allegations it used dark patterns to trick millions of young gamers into making unintentional purchases via the Fortnite app.