A Louisiana woman seeks class-action status on a lawsuit filed against Hubbard Radio and WTOP News for allegedly violating the Video Privacy Protections Act (VPPA).
WTOP is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. The VPAA was passed back in 1988 by a Congress that sought to protect consumer information from being sold following the purchase of a video rental.
According to Inside Radio, Toni Duplantis, a WTOP News digital subscriber alleges that WTOP knowingly disclosed personal information to Facebook including a record of every video clip she viewed without prior consent.
While WTOP News is not a rental service, the lawsuit argues that Hubbard is a video tape service provider. The law applies to anyone who rents, sells, or delivers prerecorded video cassettes or any other audio-visual materials.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, It seeks class-action status on behalf of “hundreds of thousands of other WTOP News digital subscribers.” It alleges that Hubbard used cookies, SDKs, pixels and Facebook’s Business Tools “to purposely track, record, collect, and transmit its digital subscribers’ interactions with WTOP News.
“Put simply, Hubbard has shared its digital subscribers’ viewed video media in a manner that allows third parties to know each and every video an individual has viewed on WTOP News,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit seeks a $2,500 payment to the plaintiff and each class member, along with punitive damages to be determined at a trial along with prejudgment interest and legal costs.
