Paramount Lawsuit Claims Pluto TV Harvests Personal Info from Videos Watched by Children

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Pluto TV, a streaming platform owned and operated by Paramount, harvests and discloses to third parties without consent the private, personally identifiable information of minors who view the site’s “kid-friendly” content.

Want to stay in the loop on class action lawsuits that matter to you? Sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter.

The 72-page privacy lawsuit contends that defendant Paramount Skydance Corporation has embedded into Pluto TV certain tracking tools, including pixels and third-party cookies, to capture users’ video viewing data and sell it to the likes of Microsoft and Google for the purpose of curating personalized advertisements. Per the suit, the data of children is harvested and transmitted to Microsoft and Google, two of the largest advertisers in the world, by Pluto TV without informed authorization or parental consent.

“Defendants have chosen to prioritize their marketing efforts over consumer privacy by installing Google and Microsoft’s Tracking Tools on its [sic] website, including in the ‘Kids’ section [of Pluto TV],” the lawsuit alleges.

Though Pluto TV is not a video-streaming service designed specifically for children, the platform reportedly offers over 700,000 hours of child-friendly programming within its “Kids” section, which can be easily found and accessed through the site’s homepage, the suit explains. Unbeknownst to users, the defendants “intentionally configured” the Google and Microsoft tracking pixels on Pluto TV to capture and transmit the private data of children, information that includes “specific lines of code linking the information to the user’s identity,” the complaint says.

“Then, that data is subsequently used to make data profiles for advertising purposes,” the case adds.

The class action lawsuit accuses Paramount Skydance and Pluto TV of violating the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a law designed to prevent corporations from collecting the personal information of children where a website or online service is directed toward kids, or the company knows that it is collecting personal information from a child. The case also alleges the defendants have violated the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), another law that aims to prevent the disclosure and aggregation of data related to an individual’s video consumption.

“Online child-targeted advertising is a big problem – but without the data collected by companies like Defendants, it would not be nearly as effective,” the case reads.

The plaintiffs are consumers across the United States who, on behalf of their minor children, claim that tracking and surveillance tools built into Pluto TV allowed for the transmission of their children’s information without consent.

The Pluto class action lawsuit looks to cover all minors in the United States who watched a video on Pluto TV’s platform and had their private information disclosed to Microsoft, Google, or another unauthorized third party.

Looking for current class action lawsuits to join? Check out ClassAction.org’s class action lawsuit list.