In December, I wrote a post stating that Companies using Facebook Beacon as a marketing tool would get sued and demonstrated the privacy policies in effect at a number of the Beacon partners. One of those is Blockbuster, which as noted in the December post, was so over the top with it's privacy policy. It's, in fact, criminal, in my opinion.
Techcrunch is now reporting that Blockbuster is in fact being sued by a Texas woman who under the premise of a 1988 federal law called the Video Privacy Protection Act (18 USC § 2710) which was enacted after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was b0rked when video rental history was released during his confirmation hearing. The law prevents video rental companies from disclosing personally identifiable data regarding a member and his/her rental history.
Point of fact, this law has never been tested in court. However, non-lawyer Aaron does a great job of drilling down what's so messed up about this.
Regardless of whether a Facebook user has opted in or out of Beacon advertising within Facebook, express opt-in is required on the Blockbuster side. And at the time, and pertinent to this lawsuit, even with consent it is criminal for video rental companies to share this kind of data, per 18 USC § 2710.
I'll play around on PACER later on and see if I can dig up any more.
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