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Proposed Class in Hulu Privacy Suit Needs Objective Data

By Julia Love
July 02, 2014

With eye-popping damages at stake, a federal magistrate refused to allow consumer plaintiffs to move forward as a class with claims that Hulu violated their privacy by sharing the videos they viewed. In Re: Hulu Privacy Litigation, 11-03764.

In a 38-page order, San Francisco U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of the Northern District of California dismissed without prejudice the plaintiffs' motion to certify a class of Hulu users. The plaintiffs filed their claims under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), 18 U.S.C. '2710, which provides for statutory damages of $2,500 per violation. The VPPA was enacted by Congress in 1988 after a newspaper published a list of videos rented by U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

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