TED.com, TED App Users’ Personal Data Unlawfully Shared With Third Parties, Class Action Alleges

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TED Foundation, Inc. faces a proposed class action that claims the nonprofit organization illegally shares website and app users’ personal information with third parties without consent.

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According to the 46-page lawsuit, independent testing by a private research company in July 2023 revealed that the defendant “intentionally” transmits to third parties users’ personally identifiable information and video-viewing behavior through the TED app and TED.com. The suit alleges that this conduct directly violates the federal Video Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits a “video tape service provider” from knowingly disclosing consumers’ private data without consent.

The case claims that the media company, which offers prerecorded videos and lectures on a wide range of topics, has integrated into its app at least two software development kits (SDKs) respectively operated by third-party vendors Leanplum and Mixpanel.

The tools and analytics secretly embedded in the TED app allow the third parties to automatically collect a user’s data—including their full name, email address, TED account user ID, the titles of the videos they watch and their URLs—and aggregate the information into “user profiles” for targeted marketing purposes, the filing explains.

The lawsuit further contends that the defendant unlawfully transmits this private data to third-party social engagement platform OpenWeb, whose software—OpenWebOS—is used to help track user behavior on TED.com.

As the suit tells it, the various third-party vendors with which the defendant partners each allegedly receive enough personal data from the company to identify specific TED app or TED.com users and match them with the precise videos they watch.

“[C]ommon sense dictates that a sophisticated media foundation like [the defendant], who includes several data collection and analysis [application programming interfaces] and advertising platforms into its app, as well as partners with a social engagement platform through its website, is fully aware of the scope of the data that these third parties are collecting,” the case charges. “This shows that [TED Foundation] is choosing to intentionally provide that data to Leanplum, Mixpanel, and OpenWeb in order to obtain their analyzing, marketing, and advertising services.”

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States who used TED.com and/or Android or iOS versions of the TED app to watch videos and had their personal information transmitted to a third party.

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