Digital privacy will soon be coming before the United States Supreme Court as Justices have agreed to hear a case concerning conflicting interpretations of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).
Enacted in 1988, the VPPA was introduced after Robert Bork’s video rental history was shared with and published by a journalist during his contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearing.
The VPPA bars “video tape service providers” from sharing “personally identifiable information” about “consumers” who rent, purchase, or subscribe to their services.
The case that is now set to come before the Supreme Court alleges that Paramount violated the VPPA by disclosing to Facebook, without proper consent, their subscribers’ identities and video media information.
Plaintiff Michael Salazar brought this complaint against Paramount Global after subscribing to a free email newsletter put out by 247Sports.com and watching video clips posted to the website. Through the use of Meta Pixel, the website allegedly shared Salazar’s Facebook ID and browsing data with Facebook.
Central to this case is the question of whether or not a person must actually rent, purchase, or subscribe to video content specifically in order to be considered a “consumer” under the VPPA, or if subscribing to any services — such as, in this case, a free email newsletter — is sufficient to trigger protections under the law.
In April of last year, a three-judge panel from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals sided 2-1 with Paramount, arguing that Salazar was not considered a “consumer” under the VPPA because the email newsletter to which he subscribed was too dissimilar to the “goods or services in the nature of video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials” protected by the law.
The dissenting opinion pushed back on this interpretation, arguing that the court was rewriting the law by adding new limitations not included by Congress in the text of the legislation.
Salazar asked the Supreme Court to review his case in October, suggesting that appellate courts were divided over their interpretation of the VPPA.
While the 6th Circuit and the DC Circuit have both adopted a more narrow understanding up the VPPA, the 2nd Circuit and 7th Circuit have both taken a broader view on the law.
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up his case, which will likely be scheduled for oral arguments at some point during their 2026-27 term.
