ESPN, Viewer at Odds Over Standing Issues in VPPA Complaint

ESPN and a viewer suing for an alleged Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) violation are at odds over whether the plaintiff has standing under the Supreme Court's 2016 Spokeo v. Robins decision and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' Robins v. Spokeo ruling on remand. In a docket 15-35449 filing (in Pacer) Friday with the 9th Circuit, ESPN said plaintiff Chad Eichenberger's complaint doesn't allege any concrete injury-in-fact that Article III requires, only a computer-to-computer transfer of information when ESPN disclosed to Adobe Analytics his Roku device information and what WatchESPN channel videos were watched using that Roku. There's no material risk of the embarrassment or chilling effect that VPPA is supposed to protect against, the programmer said. Eichenberger said (in Pacer) Friday that the remand decision reinforced privacy interests "are 'real' enough" for Article III purposes that a violation is injury-in-fact. The plaintiff said since Congress enacted VPPA to avoid harm of privacy invasion from disclosure of video-viewing habits, disclosures of information that violated VPPA are actionable without showing any further harm.