The New Yorker Legal Investigation: Attorneys Look into Potential Privacy Violations
Last Updated on March 7, 2024
Investigation Complete
Attorneys working with ClassAction.org have finished their investigation into this matter.
Check back for any potential updates and take a look at our open investigations here. The information on this page is for reference only.
At A Glance
- This Alert Affects:
- Facebook users with a digital subscription to The New Yorker who have watched videos on NewYorker.com.
- What’s Going On?
- Attorneys working with ClassAction.org have reason to believe that NewYorker.com may be using a tracking tool to secretly transmit details about certain users and the videos they’ve watched to Facebook. They’re now gathering digital subscribers to take action over potential privacy violations.
- What Am I Signing Up For, Exactly?
- You’re signing up for what’s known as “mass arbitration,” which involves hundreds or thousands of consumers bringing individual arbitration claims against the same company at the same time and over the same issue. This is different from class action litigation and takes place outside of court.
- Does This Cost Anything?
- It costs nothing to sign up, and the attorneys will only get paid if they win your claim.
- How Much Could I Get?
- While there are no guarantees, the federal Video Privacy Protection Act states that consumers who had their rights violated under the law could be owed $2,500.
Attorneys working with ClassAction.org suspect that Condé Nast—the publishing company behind The New Yorker—may have violated the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) by sharing consumers’ private information without permission and are now looking into possible legal action.
Specifically, they believe that NewYorker.com may be using a tracking tool to secretly transmit details about certain users and the videos they’ve watched to Facebook. This data may tie a user’s watch history to their Facebook ID, a unique identifier that can be used to match the individual to their Facebook profile.
How Could the New Yorker Be Sharing Data with Facebook?
Many website operators gather data about the people who visit their websites by using an invisible tracking tool called the Meta (formerly known as Facebook) pixel.
The pixel, which can be embedded on any webpage, can be programmed to record every action a visitor takes, such as the buttons they click, the searches they perform and the content they view.
In the case of NewYorker.com, attorneys are specifically looking into whether the website is tracking which videos its users have watched and sending that information to Meta along with each person’s Facebook ID. A Facebook ID is a unique identifier linked to an individual’s Facebook profile and could potentially be used to match up a specific person with the videos they’ve watched on The New Yorker’s website.
In general, the data collected by a website through the Meta pixel can be used by both the website operator and the social media giant to better target advertisements to their users.
It’s believed that Condé Nast’s suspected data sharing practices may violate the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits “video tape service providers” from disclosing to third parties any information that identifies the video materials a person has requested or watched without their consent.
Is This a Lawsuit? What Am I Signing Up For, Exactly?
You are not signing up for a lawsuit, but rather a process known as mass arbitration. This is a relatively new legal technique that, like a class action lawsuit, allows a large group of people to take action and seek compensation from a company over an alleged wrongdoing. Here is a quick explanation of mass arbitration from our blog:
[M]ass arbitration occurs when hundreds or thousands of consumers file individual arbitration claims against the same company over the same issue at the same time. The aim of a mass arbitration proceeding is to grant relief on a large scale (similar to a class action lawsuit) for those who sign up.”
NewYorker.com’s user agreement contains both a class action waiver and an arbitration clause requiring customers to resolve disputes via arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution that takes place outside of court before a neutral arbitrator, as opposed to a judge or jury.
It’s for this reason that attorneys working with ClassAction.org have decided to handle this matter as a mass arbitration rather than a class action lawsuit.
How Much Does This Cost?
It costs nothing to sign up, and you’ll only need to pay if the attorneys win money on your behalf. Their payment will come as a percentage of your award.
If they don’t win your claim, you don’t pay.
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