According to subscribers suing, AMC allegedly installed tracking technologies—including the Meta Pixel, the X Tracking Pixel, and Google Tracking Technology—on its website, allowing their personally identifying information to be connected with their viewing history.
Some trackers, like the Meta Pixel, required AMC to choose what kind of activity can be tracked, and subscribers claimed that AMC had willingly opted into sharing video names and URLs with Meta, along with a Facebook ID. “Anyone” could use the Facebook ID, subscribers said, to identify the AMC subscribers “simply by entering https://www.facebook.com/[unencrypted FID]/” into a browser.
X’s ID could similarly be de-anonymized, subscribers alleged, by using tweeterid.com.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The settlement comes in response to allegations that AMC illegally shared subscribers’ viewing history with tech companies like Google, Facebook, and X (aka Twitter) in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).
It was originally passed to protect individuals’ right to private viewing habits, after a journalist published the mostly unrevealing video rental history of a judge, Robert Bork, who had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan.
The so-called “Bork Tapes” revealed little—other than that the judge frequently rented spy thrillers and British costume dramas—but lawmakers recognized that speech could be chilled by monitoring anyone’s viewing habits.
In addition to distributing the $8.3 million settlement fund among class members, subscribers will receive a free one-week digital subscription.
Patreon said that the law was enacted “for the express purpose of silencing disclosures about political figures and their video-watching, an issue of undisputed continuing public interest and concern.”
And the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has already moved to convince the court to reject Patreon’s claim, describing the VPPA in a blog as an “essential” privacy protection.
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