Nonprofit PragerU Dodges VPPA Case on Personally Identifiable Information Issues
A federal judge dropped a Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) claim against a conservative nonprofit Tuesday because he ruled the plaintiffs failed to claim their personally identifiable information (PII) was compromised.
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The two plaintiffs created accounts on PragerU's site, which features large video libraries. They said Prager U collected their viewing habits through tracking pixels and disclosed them and their PII to third parties without their knowledge or consent.
In his ruling, Judge Mark Scarsi said screenshots and information in the complaint were “provided only as an exemplar," and didn't "relate to either Plaintiff specifically.” As such, it wasn't claimed that the plaintiffs' PII was disclosed.
In addition, Scarsi mentioned the “ordinary person” standard guided his ruling. The standard holds that PII is information an average person could use to identify an individual (see 2505010046). But there's "a growing divide among courts about whether Facebook IDs coupled with video viewing histories transmitted by Facebook Pixel satisfy the ordinary person test,” the judge said. However, Scorsi said he didn't "need to take a side in this conflict" since the plaintiffs never alleged that their specific PII was disclosed."
Scarsi gave the plaintiffs 14 days to file an amended complaint. Case 2:25-cv-03984 was filed in the U.S. District Court for Central California.
The judge, however, ruled the plaintiffs were consumers under the federal VPPA and that he found “persuasive the reasoning of the Second and Seventh Circuits,” referencing courts that held a broad definition of the term under the VPPA (see 2503310018).
Circuit courts are split on the definition of a consumer under the VPPA (see 2504150047), which may tee up review from the U.S. Supreme Court (see 2508190026). The high court may take up the issue with NBA v. Salazar, which has a petition pending (see 2508150043).