VPPA Applies to Hulu, Court Says in Letting Privacy Case Proceed
Hulu isn’t exempt from the Video Privacy Protection Act, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco ruled Friday, letting proceed a privacy lawsuit seeking class-action status (http://xrl.us/bnkk3o). The company, whose owners include Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and News Corp., argued that because the website that streams video from cable and broadcast networks offers no physical product in a brick-and-mortar store, the VPPA, which dates to 1988 and covers providers of “prerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials,” does not apply. U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler ruled that the statute “is about the video content, not about how that content is delivered.”
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"The court concludes that Congress used ’similar audio visual materials’ to ensure that VPPA’s protections would retain their force even as technologies evolve,” the ruling said. It cited as reasoning “Congress’ concern with protecting consumer privacy in an evolving technological world.” Hulu didn’t immediately comment.
Because Hulu users don’t pay for the services or content on the website, they're not the “renters, buyers or subscribers” that VPPA is intended to protect, Hulu had argued. The plaintiffs didn’t subscribe to the premium Hulu Plus service. Beeler rejected this notion. “While the terms ‘renter’ and ‘buyer’ necessarily imply payment of money, the term ’subscriber’ does not,” he said. “If Congress wanted to limit the word ’subscriber’ to ‘paid subscriber,’ it would have said so."
Last year, the House passed an amendment to the VPPA which would make it easier for online video streaming services like Hulu and Netflix to share information about users’ activity. While the Senate Privacy Subcommittee opposed the update earlier this year, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced a similar update as an amendment to the Senate Cybersecurity Act, which ultimately did not pass.