• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, March 11, 2024

Two Amazon Prime Video users claim the company violated a federal video privacy law by allegedly sharing information about their online video viewing with other Amazon-affiliated companies, and with outside businesses.

In a class-action complaint filed Friday, Virginia resident Meredith Beagle and Louisiana resident Jordan Guerrero allege that Amazon Services regularly discloses personally identifiable information to its parent company, Amazon Inc., “for audience measurement purposes, marketing purposes, market research purposes, advertising purposes, and other data collection and analysis purposes.”

Amazon Services also allegedly discloses users' personally identifiable information “to other non-Amazon affiliated third parties for audience measurement purposes and market research,” the pair allege in their complaint, brought in federal district court in Seattle.

They claim Amazon, Inc. and Amazon Services are violating the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which prohibits video rental companies from sharing identifiable information about people's video-viewing history without their consent. Congress passed the law in 1988, after a Washington, D.C. newspaper obtained Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental history from a local store. 

“Amazon Services -- the video service provider for United States Amazon Prime Video consumers -- does not comply, and has never complied, with the VPPA’s requirements for informed written consent,” the complaint alleges.

Beagle says that between 2021 and this year she purchased or rented 10 items from Amazon Prime Video, including “Band of Brothers,” “Gremlims” and “Star Trek II,” while Guerrero says that in the last two years he rented or purchased 12 items from Amazon Prime, including “Jaws,” “Seven” and “Fargo.”

Both plaintiffs allege that Amazon Services provided its parent company, Amazon Inc., “with direct access” to data such as “the titles of videos watched, playback start dates and times, playback end dates and times, whether it was a purchase or rental history, billing address, [Internet service provider] information, and location information.”

The complaint acknowledges that the federal video privacy law has an exception for disclosures made in the ordinary course of business, but argues that the exception is narrow -- and doesn't apply if disclosures are made for marketing purposes.

Beagle and Guerrero also say in the complaint that Amazon Services discloses it can share video usage history with both affiliated and non-affilated companies, but the plaintiffs claim the disclosures aren't sufficient under the video privacy law.

“Even though defendants’ fine print admits that defendants collect and disclose consumers’ data, defendants do not obtain consumers’ consent nor provide a clear and conspicuous opt-out,” the complaint alleges.

The consumers also claim that Amazon is violating a Washington consumer protection law by allegedly “unfairly and/or deceptively” infringing consumers' privacy.

Amazon hasn't yet responded to MediaPost's request for comment.