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AMC to Pay $8 Million for Alleged Violation of Video Privacy Law Through Use of Tracking Technologies, Including Meta Pixel, X Tracking Pixel, and Google Tracking Technology (arstechnica.com)

submitted 6 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

According to subscribers suing, AMC allegedly installed tracking technologies—including the Meta Pixel, the X Tracking Pixel, and Google Tracking Technology—on its website, allowing their personally identifying information to be connected with their viewing history.

Some trackers, like the Meta Pixel, required AMC to choose what kind of activity can be tracked, and subscribers claimed that AMC had willingly opted into sharing video names and URLs with Meta, along with a Facebook ID. "Anyone" could use the Facebook ID, subscribers said, to identify the AMC subscribers "simply by entering https://www.facebook.com/[unencrypted FID]/" into a browser.

X's ID could similarly be de-anonymized, subscribers alleged, by using tweeterid.com.

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[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 34 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Piracy is superior once again

[–] redDEAD@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Unless you physically own a physical drm free copy it always has been.

[–] sorghum@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 months ago

It physically exists on my hard drive after being converted from an encrypted version

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 6 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The settlement comes in response to allegations that AMC illegally shared subscribers' viewing history with tech companies like Google, Facebook, and X (aka Twitter) in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).

It was originally passed to protect individuals' right to private viewing habits, after a journalist published the mostly unrevealing video rental history of a judge, Robert Bork, who had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan.

The so-called "Bork Tapes" revealed little—other than that the judge frequently rented spy thrillers and British costume dramas—but lawmakers recognized that speech could be chilled by monitoring anyone's viewing habits.

In addition to distributing the $8.3 million settlement fund among class members, subscribers will receive a free one-week digital subscription.

Patreon said that the law was enacted "for the express purpose of silencing disclosures about political figures and their video-watching, an issue of undisputed continuing public interest and concern."

And the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has already moved to convince the court to reject Patreon's claim, describing the VPPA in a blog as an "essential" privacy protection.

The original article contains 843 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[+] shiftymccool@lemm.ee -11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Or, just don't have those IDs by not having accounts. Nobody's identifying me by my Facebook ID if I don't have one. Simples

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 41 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Except Facebook keeps ghost profiles for unregistered users which are created and fed data just by visiting any site that has Facebook integration. They use browser fingerprinting to track activity across those sites and connect user activity to specific profiles, even if you never touch the "login using Facebook/share on Facebook" buttons.

[–] bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

firefox blocks this out of the box

[–] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

Big issue is you don't know how well it does this. As you can't see the other side of the equation.

Even if it's perfect. Many times I need to use a chromium based browser to use a website properly (the website fault not Firefox). Additionally many apps are just web views that are based on chrome. It's hard to avoid this type of tracking.

[–] rdyoung@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Problem is that even those that have never setup an account with Facebook still have a profile that Facebook built on their behalf. If you are in any photos that friends/family/coworkers uploaded and if even one person named you in the photo, you are now known by fb and anyone who uses that data.

[–] Overzeetop@kbin.social 8 points 6 months ago

Don't even need that. Meta crosses multiple platforms now - Instagram, FB, WhatsApp, etc. All you need is for someone you know to have you in their contacts list, and the hit the "allow access" a single time. All of that data is then scraped, cataloged, and cross referenced with everyone else. Name, address, phone numbers, birthday, work address - anything your contact felt it convenient to add about you in their phone. From there it's just a matter of time until data mining of second and third level contact - or outright data leaks - fill in the rest of your profile and demographic information.