• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, 8 hours ago

Amazon Prime Video consumers will ask a federal appellate court to revive a claim that the company violated their privacy by allegedly sharing information about their online video viewing with Amazon affiliates.

The lawsuit -- brought by Virginia resident Meredith Beagle and other consumers -- was dismissed last month by U.S. District Court Judge James Robart in Seattle.

This week, attorneys for Beagle and the others appealed that dismissal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Counsel hasn't yet filed substantive arguments with the appellate court.

The dispute began last year, when Beagle and others alleged in a class-action complaint that Amazon violated the federal Video Privacy Protection Act -- a 1988 measure that prohibits video rental companies from revealing identifiable information about people's video-viewing history without their consent. Congress passed the law after a Washington, D.C. newspaper obtained Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental history from a local store.

Amazon urged Robart to dismiss the matter for several reasons, including that the allegations in the complaint, even if proven true, wouldn't show that the company shared personally identifiable information about the videos watched by Prime users.

Robart agreed with Amazon, ruling that the allegations, if proven, would not support a finding that Amazon “affirmatively disclosed” users' personally identifiable information. Instead, he said the allegations could only show the “mere possibility” that Amazon disclosed users' information.