• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

Counsel for a consumer who used Hearst's WMUR app this week urged an appellate panel to revive a lawsuit claiming that Hearst violated the federal video privacy law by sharing identifiable information about his video viewing history with Google and the engagement platform Braze.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns in Boston threw out the case for several reasons -- including that the consumer, Charles Therrien, failed to prove that data transmitted to Google and Braze could identify him.

Hearst allegedly sent some location data to both companies, and the Android advertising ID (a resettable string of numbers) to Google.

On Monday, attorney Max Roberts argued to a three-judge panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals that Therrien should have been allowed to proceed to trial. Among other arguments, Roberts said Hearst should have known that geolocation data was "reasonably and foreseeably" likely to identify Therrien.

Hearst attorney Andrea Butler countered that there was no evidence in the record that Hearst knowingly transmitted personally identifiable information.

The argument came in a battle dating to March 2023, when Hearst TV app user Michelle Saunders claimed in a class-action complaint that the company violated the Video Privacy Protection Act -- a 1988 law that prohibits video companies from disclosing consumers' identifiable viewing history without their consent.

Saunders later dropped out of the litigation and was replaced by Charles Therrien.

He is among numerous plaintiffs who have recently sued online companies for allegedly violating the video privacy law by embedding analytics tools on their google sites.

Hearst sought summary judgment -- meaning a ruling in its favor based on evidence developed in the course of litigation.

Stearns sided with Hearst, writing in an April 2025 ruling that record showed that just a single “geolocation data point” was shared with Braze -- a church that at least 75 people attended.

That data, standing alone, would not identify Therrien, Stearns ruled. Therrien disputed that factual finding, arguing that Hearst disclosed 856 points of his geolocation to Braze -- but Therrien agreed that Hearst only retained one point of location data, according to the ruling.

On Monday, Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo questioned Roberts about the significance of the alleged transmission of geolocation data.

At one point, she asked whether Google or Braze was "capable of doing the complex de-anonymizing process" that could allow them to figure out someone's identify based on geolocation data.

Roberts answered in the affirmative. He said one way to "de-anonymize" location data would be to physically visit someone's last known location -- which in Therrien's case was outside his church.

He added later in the proceedings that geolocation data creates a "fingerprint" that can reveal exactly where someone is going on any given day.

Hearst's attorney, Butler, countered that Roberts' arguments were too speculative.

The panel didn't indicate when it would issue a ruling.