• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 12, 2024

Meta Platforms has known for more than two years that its analytics tool, the Meta Pixel, collects Facebook users' identifiable video viewing information, four California residents alleged late last week in a revised version of their class-action privacy complaint against the tech platform.

“Meta intended to intercept plaintiffs’ and class members’ sensitive data -- it was not by accident or an unintended result,” Alan Starzinski, Oladeji Odumosu, Aurelio Medina and Darrnell McCoy allege in the new complaint, which alleges that the platform gathers data about Facebook users' video viewing activity on four streaming services -- Paramount+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Starz.

The users specifically allege that Meta meant to collect the data, and has known since at least March 2022 -- when it was sued for allegedly tracking users' activity on HBO Max -- that its tracking pixel transmitted identifiable information about users' video viewing.

The revised complaint also notes that Meta has been sued at least 38 times since June 2022 for allegedly collecting data through the Meta Pixel.

The amended complaint comes in a lawsuit first brought in June, when Starzinski and the others alleged that Meta violated federal and California wiretap laws by intercepting Facebook users' “sensitive and confidential communications” -- meaning their video-viewing history.

In September, Meta urged U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in San Francisco to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the allegations, even if proven true, wouldn't prove it intentionally obtained the information.

The company added that “mere awareness” about data transfers wouldn't be enough to prove a violation of wiretap laws. Meta also argued that web developers decide how to integrate the Meta Pixel into their sites, and that its policies prohibit developers from sending it sensitive data.

The plaintiffs now contend it's “implausible” that the alleged data collection wasn't deliberate.

“It is implausible that, after at least 38 lawsuits ... Meta’s interception of confidential information through its Pixel is unintentional,” the Facebook users allege. “It is equally implausible that Meta did not intend to collect video-viewing data.”

The lawsuit is one of dozens of recent privacy cases against tech companies over online analytics tools.

Rulings so far have been mixed.

For instance, U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick in the Northern District of California recently allowed Facebook users to proceed with claims that Meta violated federal and state laws by tracking users' visits to health care providers' websites, via the Meta Pixel.

A different federal judge – Vince Chhabria, also in the Northern District of California – came to the opposite conclusion in a lawsuit by people who claimed Google's analytics tool wrongly collected sensitive data from health care sites.

Chhabria dismissed claims in that case, ruling that the allegations, even if proven true, wouldn't show Google intended to receive health care data.