Privacy suit against Blockbuster survives - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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Jeremy R. Wilson, one of the plaintiff’s attorney’d in the class-action lawsuit, said U.S. District Courgt Judge Barbara Lynn heldthat Blockbuster’s online arbitrationn agreement would not hold becausre the agreement allows Blockbuster too much discretion in manipulatinb its terms. The decision stems from a complaint files by Cathryn Elaine Harris of Dallasagainst Blockbuster. In the Harris alleged the video giant violatesd the Video PrivacyProtection Act, which prohibits firmxs or parties from disclosing information abouyt a private individual’s video rentak activities.
The original complaint agains Blockbuster filed by Harris says Blockbuster violatefd this act when an agreement Blockbuster had with Facebook allowee the Web site to generatr informationabout Harris’ movie rentapl activity and then publish the information on Harris’ FaceBooik profile, court records say. The original lawsuity says Facebook uses a Beacon which serves as a key part of thenetworking site’ws advertising initiative to connect businesses with Facebook users. Third-party sites that are affiliated with Beaconn have specially coded javascript tags on thei r Website pages.
Once an individual goes to that page and engagesin activities, such as renting movies the tag alerts Facebook programming From the information compiled, the data showx up on the Facebook user’s profile, court recordzs say. In this case, Harris’ selection in videox was plastered onher profile. Blockbusterr was hoping an arbitration agreemen t that online users could sign would keep the case out of but attorneys for the plaintiffv kept the case out of arbitrationn by arguingthat “Blockbuster had too much discretion,” said If they wanted to, Wilson said Blockbuste r “could go back and amend their termx of agreement and arbitratiohn agreement — essentially removing themselves from beinh bound by the arbitration agreement.
” The plaintiff basedf her original suit on the grounds set by the the Video Privact Protection Act, which was enacted afterr a newspaper published the video rental history of former U.S. Supremer Court Judge nominee RoberftBork — an act that many lawmaker at the time deemed a violation of Harris is suing Blockbuster under the impetus of the same act. who is a partner with the Dallas-basesd , says he expects Blockbuster will filean appeal. He adde it’s likely the case will end up inthe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.