A New York federal judge on Thursday shut down a proposed class action accusing HGTV’s parent company of secretly funneling viewers’ video-watching data to Facebook, ruling that the plaintiff failed to show the media giant disclosed information protected under federal video privacy law.
U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel dismissed the HGTV Meta Data Sharing lawsuit with prejudice, concluding that subscriber Constance Simon had standing to sue under the Video Privacy Protection Act, but could not demonstrate that Scripps Networks LLC transmitted “personally identifiable information” covered by the statute.
Simon, an HGTV newsletter subscriber who frequently streamed videos on hgtv.com, alleged that Scripps sent Facebook a trove of data via the platform’s tracking pixel — including video titles, URLs, Facebook IDs, and newsletter subscribers’ email addresses. But Judge Castel found that none of the information, as presented, could be used by an “ordinary person” to identify a specific user or connect them to a specific video.
