Pixel Code Too Complex to Identify Viewers, Judge Says
Second Circuit Precedent Leaves Little Room for Plaintiffs
Judge Castel said Simon’s own pleadings undermined her theory of unlawful disclosure. By her description, the pixel sent “complex computer code” that an average consumer could not reasonably decipher — a fatal flaw under freshly clarified VPPA standards.
“The complaint supplies no allegations supporting an inference that an ordinary person could process the information from the pixel,” Castel wrote. Because the transmitted signals were technically dense and not human-readable, he concluded the claim “must fail.”
The judge leaned heavily on two recent Second Circuit decisions — Solomon v. Flipps Media and Hughes v. National Football League — which held that pixel-generated transmissions do not qualify as personally identifiable information unless an ordinary observer could interpret them without specialized tools. The appellate court declared that Solomon had “effectively shut the door” on pixel-based VPPA cases, and Judge Castel agreed, stating lower courts had “uniformly” applied that standard.
Simon’s screenshots of pixel code did little to help her case. “Outside of conclusory statements,” the judge said, she offered no explanation of how an average person could tie the code to a Facebook ID, browser identifier, or specific video titles.
