Blockbuster denies Facebook promotion violates customer privacy

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 4/18/2008

APRIL 18 | A woman is seeking a class action lawsuit against Blockbuster for invading customer privacy.

Cathryn Elaine Harris accuses the chain of wrongfully distributing personal information about her Blockbuster Online DVD transactions for marketing purposes on social network Facebook. Through Facebook’s marketing technology Beacon, Blockbuster can work to hype DVDs throughout a site user’s entire friend network.

As explained in the suit, a Facebook user can often find on his/her profile the following promotional message from a hypothetical buddy, “Preston added Lord of the Rings to his queue on Blockbuster.com.” That plug is typically followed by a link to learn more about the title and/or Blockbuster offerings.

Harris accuses Blockbuster of infringing upon the Video Privacy Protection Act, which stops video stores from releasing customer rental and sales histories. It was enacted in 1987 after the Supreme Court ruled against a Washington D.C. newspaper obtaining a list of 146 titles a family had rented.

In the April 9 filing in Eastern Texas U.S. District Court, Harris wants $2,500 in damages for each instance Blockbuster violated the Video Privacy Protection Act. Harris is also seeking that amount on behalf of all potential members of the class action suit.

Late last year, Facebook said it changed its Beacon program to make it easier for users to opt-out of receiving corporate advertising messages. Facebook had faced an onslaught of complaints, similar to Harris’, that the site was invading people’s privacy. But Harris claims that it’s still easy for companies to release private information.

“Sometime in December 2007, Blockbuster began notifying online users that a summary of the user’s actions would be sent to Facebook,” reads the suit. “However, the summary is immediately sent to a user’s Facebook profile even before the user has a chance to decline the distribution of his/her personal identifiable information. To this day, Blockbuster Online members remain unsuspecting victims.”

Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove said the company denies the allegations. Facebook did not immediately comment.

“Our alliance with Facebook included numerous levels of privacy protection built in for our online subscribers,” Hargrove said.  “While we cannot discuss the specifics of this lawsuit, we intend to vigorously defend the company in this litigation.”