{"id":207131,"date":"2026-01-27T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/supreme-court-to-decide-how-1988-videotape-privacy-law-applies-to-online-video\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T16:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:25:08","slug":"supreme-court-to-decide-how-1988-videotape-privacy-law-applies-to-online-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/27\/supreme-court-to-decide-how-1988-videotape-privacy-law-applies-to-online-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court to decide how 1988 videotape privacy law applies to online video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court to decide how 1988 videotape privacy law applies to online video<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/01\/supreme-court-to-decide-how-1988-videotape-privacy-law-applies-to-online-video\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-01-27 16:15:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: arstechnica.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court is taking up a case on whether Paramount violated the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) by disclosing a user\u2019s viewing history to Facebook. The case, Michael Salazar v. Paramount Global, hinges on the law\u2019s definition of the word \u201cconsumer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salazar filed a class action against Paramount in 2022, alleging that it \u201cviolated the VPPA by disclosing his personally identifiable information to Facebook without consent,\u201d Salazar\u2019s petition to the Supreme Court said. Salazar had signed up for an online newsletter through 247Sports.com, a site owned by Paramount, and had to provide his email address in the process. Salazar then used 247Sports.com to view videos while logged in to his Facebook account.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, Paramount disclosed his personally identifiable information\u2014including his Facebook ID and which videos he watched\u2014to Facebook,\u201d the petition said. \u201cThe disclosures occurred automatically because of the Facebook Pixel Paramount installed on its website. Facebook and Paramount then used this information to create and display targeted advertising, which increased their revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1988 law defines consumer as \u201cany renter, purchaser, or subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider.\u201d The phrase \u201cvideo tape service provider\u201d is defined to include providers of \u201cprerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials,\u201d and thus arguably applies to more than just sellers of tapes.<\/p>\n

The legal question for the Supreme Court \u201cis whether the phrase \u2018goods or services from a video tape service provider,\u2019 as used in the VPPA\u2019s definition of \u2018consumer,\u2019 refers to all of a video tape service provider\u2019s goods or services or only to its audiovisual goods or services,\u201d Salazar\u2019s petition said. The Supreme Court granted his petition to hear the case in a list of orders released yesterday.<\/p>\n

…
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Supreme Court to decide how 1988 videotape privacy law applies to online video https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/01\/supreme-court-to-decide-how-1988-videotape-privacy-law-applies-to-online-video\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/videocassette-1152x648-1769547628.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207133,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207131\/revisions\/207133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}