The Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2710 (2002)) was passed in reaction to the disclosure of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental records in a newspaper. The Act is not often invoked, but stands as one of the strongest protections of consumer privacy against a specific form of data collection. Generally, it prevents disclosure of personally identifiable rental records of "prerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audio visual material." The act was envoked in 2008 in a class action law suit against Blockbuster Inc. over participation in Facebook's discontinued Beacon Program , which formed part of Facebook's advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon reported to Facebook on Facebook's members' activities on third-party sites that also participated with Beacon even when users were not connected to Facebook, and happened without the knowledge of the Facebook user. A similar lawsuit was brought against Netflix in 2009, when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers as part of its $1 million contest to improve its recommendation system leading to the alleged outing of a lesbian mother. Text:
https://archive.epic.org/privacy/vppa/