Ubisoft is facing a potential class action lawsuit for alleged illegal user data sharing.
As reported byBloomberg Law, the class action complaint accuses theAssassin’s Creedpublisher of sharing personally identifiable information (PII) withFacebookcompany Meta.
“Data sharing policies for a service or subscription is an important factor for individuals deciding whether to provide personal information to that service.”
The complaint claims that this practice is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, which was originally introduced in 1988 to prevent video rental stores from sharing a member’s PII, because it could “specifically tie the identity of an individual” to their purchase history.
Following the growth of digital distribution, the Act was amended in 2013 to allow video rental companies, including the likes ofNetflix, to share users’ PII with social network sites but only after the user consents.
The complaint against Ubisoft alleges that because Ubisoft doesn’t tell players it’s sharing their PII with Meta, it’s therefore violating the Video Privacy Protection Act, among others.
“Defendant purposefully implemented and utilized the Pixel, which tracks user activity on the Website and discloses that information to Facebook to gather valuable marketing data,” it claims.
“The Pixel cannot be placed on a website without steps taken directly by defendant or on behalf of defendant (e.g. by a website manager). The Pixel cannot be placed on the website by Facebook without the knowledge and cooperation of defendant.
“Defendant does not seek, and has not obtained, consent from PII users to utilise the Pixel to track, share, and exchange their PII with Facebook.”
The lawsuit has currently not yet received class action certification, but the plaintiffs are seeing a trial by jury and want financial compensation for everyone affected, as well as a court order instructing Ubisoft to either remove the Pixel from its website or get consent from its users before it shares their PII.
