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Can Blockbuster be Sued Over Facebook/Beacon?
An anonymous reader writes "A professor at the New York Law School is arguing that Blockbuster violated the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 when movie choices that Facebook members made on its Web site were made available to other members of the social network via Beacon. The law basically prohibits video rental outfits from disclosing rental choice of their customers to anyone else without specific written consent. Facebook's legal liability in all of this is unclear; with Blockbuster it's a straightforward case of not complying with the VPPA, the law professor says."
What exactly has changed since 1988 that should make this law different?
If the law says that this information must be kept private, the internet and computers don't make it any less private.
Rather, the newfound popularity of the internet and computers should make privacy even more important, because once information is released, it spreads far more quickly and easily.
The issue is that facebook opts int by default, doesn't fucking tell you, then makes it's it unclear on how you disable the "feature"
You mad
This may be a naive question, but I've searched the Facebook developer documents and can't get a straight answer: Do the third-party developers of Facebook apps get access to your profile information?
For that matter, where does the code for these third-party apps run? Is it uploaded to the Facebook servers (and run from there), or are these third-party developers running code on their own webserver that uses hooks into the Facebook API?
If I install a Facebook app, does this mean that the developer has access to my profile (even if it is set to "friends only"). Even if the code runs entirely on Facebook's servers, it would seem like it would be easy for a developer to sneak-in code for "phoning home" in some way. Worse, it seems like this proliferation of mini-apps is just begging to create a myriad of security holes that others can exploit to access your restricted profile.
The very fact that Facebook doesn't clearly define what the flow of information is a problem (beyond useless "we value your privacy" rhetoric and "we can do whatever we want with your data" EULA statements). Does anyone have an understanding of the Facebook infrastructure, and can enlighten us all about what the flow-of-information on Facebook is really like?
Yes, the users did give permission to Blockbuster to broadcast their rentals.
Sorry, but not noticing the opt-out checkbox that disappears after a few seconds is not equal to "written consent" and should barely be considered "electronic consent".
Given that the entire point of the site is to share information about yourself, I have a bit of a problem with people complaining that it shares information about them.
It's a free service, not a charity. They need to turn a profit, like any other company, and the only commodity is the information that you *chose* to give them in the first place. Don't like it? Don't use it, it's ever so simple...
What's next, people deliberately setting themselves on fire and then suing the company they bought the matches from?
.. except there is mountains of case law that says otherwise: that EULAs are, in essence, only marginally enforceable.
This being in some hidden Facebook EULA, or on some 'policy page' for Blockbuster does not mean "the user notifies us in writing". That has specific legal meaning: if they don't have a SIGNED PIECE OF PAPER with the words "I allow you do release my video rental records", they don't have notification in writing of permission.
All this is irrelevant, anyway: the worst that's likely to happen here is some states' attorney general will file a lawsuit, get it certified as "class action", and Blockbuster will settle out-of-court and pay some piddly fine + attorney's fees and send everybody who asks a $5 for free rentals. Big deal.
From what I read, maybe we just need to publish the Supreme court credit card #'s and maybe we can get stronger credit protections too. I don't think this law wouldv'e existed if Justice Bork's video rental habbits had not been published in the newspaper.
I don't have a problem with Company X choosing not to produce Movie Y because they don't see commercial potential. Studios have to make those decisions all the time (and bad business decisions are inevitable). After all, they have to put up a lot of resources to get a movie made. But if Movie Y does get made, and Company Z, that is in the mainstream movie rental business, refuses to make that movie available to its customers, only to appease some rabid bunch of loonies, then I have a problem with Company Z. I can also understand it if Movie Y is in some niche market that Company Z doesn't play in. It's the caving in to special interest threats like these that I don't like (this holds, whether or not I had any interest in seeing Movie Y).
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
According to your logic, the store is not likely to have any movies in stock at all.