On June 27, 2023, Weil won a complete victory for Paramount Global in a putative nationwide class action alleging violations of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), when the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted Paramount’s motion to compel arbitration.

The plaintiff in this case created a free account on CBS.com, and allegedly also viewed video content on the CBS.com website. The plaintiff claimed that Paramount disclosed her online video-viewing history to Meta, through the use of an embedded piece of code called the Meta Pixel, in violation of the VPPA. The VPPA was originally enacted in 1988 after a newspaper published information about Judge Robert Bork’s video rental history at a local movie rental store. In relevant part, the VPPA holds that “[a] video tape service provider who knowingly discloses, to any person, personally identifiable information concerning any consumer of such provider shall be liable to the aggrieved person.” 

Recognizing that the plaintiff here agreed to terms and conditions containing an arbitration clause when creating her CBS.com account, Paramount moved to compel arbitration. In its Order, the court agreed with Paramount, referred the dispute to arbitration, and stayed the case.

Weil recently won another VPPA case for Scripps Networks, LLC, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, when the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Scripps’ motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

The Weil team was led by Weil Complex Commercial Litigation partner David Yohai, and included partner David Singh, and associates Blake Steinberg and Amy Le.