Supreme Court weighs video privacy law in Paramount case

The Supreme Court heard arguments October 14 in Salazar v. Paramount Global, a case testing whether a federal video privacy law applies to a person who subscribed to a free sports newsletter and watched videos online. Justices’ questions suggested some support for Michael Salazar’s reading of the law, but the court has not ruled and other legal issues remain open. Salazar alleges that after signing up for 247Sports.com’s email newsletter, he watched videos on the site while logged into Facebook. He says Paramount used a tracking pixel to send Facebook information about his viewing history without his consent. The allegation has not been established by a court. The case concerns the Video Privacy Protection Act, enacted in 1988 after a video store disclosed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s rental history. The law bars video tape service providers from knowingly disclosing personally identifiable information about a consumer. The justices considered whether a newsletter subscription counts as subscribing to goods or services from a video provider, even when the subscription is free and is not itself audiovisual content. Paramount argues that the statute does not protect...