The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments in Salazar v. Paramount Global, a case that could clarify how the Video Privacy Protection Act applies to websites and data-sharing tools in the internet era. The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1988 after public backlash over the disclosure of Judge Robert Bork’s video-rental history, and it bars a video tape service provider from knowingly disclosing personally identifiable information about a consumer.
At issue is whether a person qualifies as a consumer under the statute when they interact with a company’s online offerings that include video, and whether disclosures facilitated by web tracking tools fall within the law’s reach.
How the Video Privacy Protection Act question arose
The lawsuit was filed by Michael Salazar, who in 2022 signed up for an email newsletter from 247Sports.com, a Paramount-owned site focused on college recruiting. Salazar says that while logged into his Facebook account, he watched videos on 247Sports.com.
He alleges that, using a code known as a Pixel installed on the site, and without his consent, Paramount sent Facebook information about the videos he viewed. The case arrives at the Supreme Court as federal courts around the country continue to grapple with online privacy disputes and data-sharing practices.
Salazar brought a proposed class action in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, seeking $2,500 in statutory damages for the alleged violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act in his case, the same amount per class member, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees.
Lower courts’ rulings on the Video Privacy Protection Act
U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson dismissed the suit, holding that Salazar was not a consumer for purposes of the statute. The court reasoned that a consumer must be a subscriber of goods and services in the nature of audio-visual content, and that subscribing to the 247Sports.com newsletter was not subscribing to audio-visual content.
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit affirmed. Writing for the majority, Judge John Nalbandian framed the question as what goods or services a person must rent, purchase, or subscribe to in order to qualify as a consumer.
The majority adopted a limited reading, concluding that the definition is constrained by its association with a video tape service provider and does not sweep in all conceivable goods or services. The 6th Circuit’s decision added to a growing body of appellate rulings on how older privacy statutes apply to modern technology.
Salazar’s argument to the justices
Salazar asked the Supreme Court to review the decision, and the justices agreed in January. In his merits brief, he calls the case straightforward: Paramount is a video tape service provider, he subscribed to Paramount’s online newsletter and used it to view videos, and Paramount disclosed personally identifiable information, including his Facebook ID and viewing history, to Facebook in violation of the statute.
He contends the 6th Circuit rewrote the law. The statute defines consumer as any renter, purchaser, or subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider.
In his view, that language limits the source of the goods or services to such providers but does not limit the type of goods or services. He argues that goods or services covers everything a video tape service provider offers.
He notes that elsewhere in the law, Congress expressly tied definitions to video materials, showing it knew how to impose such limits when it wanted to. Salazar’s position has drawn interest from privacy advocates and industry groups watching how the court will interpret the statute.
Paramount’s response on the Video Privacy Protection Act
Paramount urges the court to uphold the 6th Circuit. The company emphasizes the law’s origin in protecting video-rental privacy and argues that expanding it to cover non-video transactions or broad categories of online activity would distort its purpose and create an unworkable internet-privacy regime with severe penalties.
Paramount says the text links the harm the statute targets to video materials or services. Consumers of non-video items do not generate the kind of personally identifiable information the statute addresses, which is tied to requests for or obtaining specific video materials or services from a video tape service provider.
As a matter of ordinary English, the company argues, a consumer of goods or services from a video tape service provider means someone transacting for video-related goods or services that generate protected data. Paramount also points to the law’s legislative history and the specific concerns that motivated Congress in the late 1980s.
The company also contends that the law has been effective in preventing disclosure of video-rental records, but recent cases like Salazar’s reflect efforts by class-action lawyers to repurpose the statute against routine web practices unrelated to video stores or rental histories. If Salazar prevails, Paramount warns, virtually any company with a website that posts videos could face class-action exposure for commonplace computer activity.