Supreme Court justice mocks lawyer’s answers during case argument Salazar v. Paramount Universalwhich could have implications for digital privacy litigation.
The case involved the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988, which was designed to protect consumers’ personal information. In this case, the court was asked to consider how the law would be applied in a more modern digital environment.
The court heard arguments in the case on Wednesday.
The case was brought by Michael Salazar, who argued that Paramount violated the law by disclosing to Facebook a history of videos he had watched on the 247Sports.com website without his consent, citing a 1988 law that prohibits video providers from disclosing personally identifiable information and viewing information without a person’s consent. Salazar was involved in a similar case in the NBA.
However, Paramount argued that Salazar did not qualify as a protected consumer because he subscribed to a newsletter rather than specifically to a video service.
Paramount Worldwide attorney Paul Clement offered several hypotheses. For example, Chick-fil-A may have videos on its website but would not be considered to be in the business of providing video services.
“It’s not the main content of the site. But if you go to the site, the first thing you see is the video starts playing. You don’t even have to click on anything and it starts playing,” he said. “That’s how most websites work today.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, however, challenged his assumptions.
“You picked some hypothesis that was particularly helpful to you, Chick-fil-A. If it wasn’t chicken, you wouldn’t have thought of that. But there are a lot of stores that sell a lot of different things, including the types of videos we’re talking about. So I don’t know why we should just focus on the simple hypothesis,” Roberts said.
Clement’s answer elicited laughter from the judges.
He said his “job is to focus on” simpler assumptions, eliciting laughter.
Roberts responded that he sees his job as “focusing on the hard things, at least for me.”
“You’re working on the more difficult assumptions. But I’m not sure there are really that many difficult assumptions because we don’t take the position that if you’re actually in the industry, you’re a videotape service provider because you do a lot of other things or other things, so you’re not included,” Clement said.
newsweek Attorneys for Paramount and Salazar were contacted via email for comment.
Paramount Supreme Court Case Explained
According to court documents, Salazar claimed that 247Sports.com violated the VPPA by “disclosing personally identifiable information to Facebook without consent.” He obtained a subscription to the site by subscribing to its newsletter and then used that subscription to watch videos on the site while logged into his Facebook profile.
Facebook then allegedly used this information to create and display targeted ads for Salazar.
A lower court sided with Paramount, ruling that Salazar needed to specifically subscribe to audiovisual material and that the newsletter did not meet that standard because he did not say he obtained the audiovisual content through the newsletter.
However, other courts have found “based on virtually identical facts” that subscribing to communications from video service providers does in fact make a person a “consumer,” his lawyer argued.
Court Divisive Issues
The specific issue the court was asked to define was whether the term “goods or services from a videotape service provider” as used in the VPPA’s definition of “consumer” refers to all of the provider’s goods and services or only to its audiovisual goods or services.
Supreme Court Arguments Explained
During Wednesday’s arguments, Clement argued that the plaintiffs were trying to “repurpose the statute” to apply to individuals who have never rented, purchased or subscribed to a film.
“Just like when people mention the goods or services of a medical provider, logically they don’t mention a cup of coffee or valet parking,” he said, “when people mention the goods or services of a videotape service provider, logically they don’t mention a chicken sandwich or a dog bandana.”
Salazar’s attorney, Joshua Hammack, said Paramount is asking the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of the law and “impose audiovisual restrictions on the term goods or services within the definition of consumer.”.“
“But Congress put audiovisual restrictions where it wanted, and the definition of video service provider and personally identifiable information is not part of the definition of consumer. That choice is decisive,” he said.
He said he did not believe that any website that had videos on it was considered a video service provider. In this case, his position was that the site was “definitely” a videotape service.
“Not everyone is going to happen to offer them. Not everyone is going to offer a video once. You have to be in the business,” he said.
What is the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988?
The Blockbuster-era law was passed nearly 40 years ago after a video rental store clerk provided reporters with a list of 146 movies rented by Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and his family during his confirmation hearings.
Bork was appointed to the high court by former President Ronald Reagan. The Senate ultimately rejected his nomination, citing reasons related to his judicial philosophy and conservative attitudes. The video rental revelation was more of a sideshow and had no significant impact on his nomination.
However, bipartisan outrage over the release of the list led to the passage of the VPPA.
what happens next
The court’s judges will now try to rule on the case salazar case. The court is expected to rule by the end of the current term, most likely no later than June 2027. The Supreme Court will continue hearing major cases with major implications for the Second Amendment, voting rights and climate change litigation during the remainder of its new term.
This article contains reporting by The Associated Press.
Please contact Newsweek editors about this story: Gray Thomas