The Crunchyroll Lawsuit: A Reason to Take Data Privacy Seriously

Popular American video-on-demand OTP streaming service Crunchyroll has been in the news lately, and it’s not for good reasons.

Crunchyroll has been accused of sharing user information with third parties, namely Meta’s Facebook. This is in violation of the Video Publishers Association Act (VPPA). A plaintiff has, in turn, taken the legal route to fight this issue, leading to the Crunchyroll lawsuit.

The sections below discuss what the Crunchyroll lawsuit is all about. Read on!

What is the Basis for the Crunchyroll Lawsuit?

The owner of Crunchyroll, Sony Group Corporation, is being sued by Lisa Cuevas in a consumer digital privacy class action lawsuit. The plaintiff claims that Sony broke VPPA by giving Facebook access to confidential information about its digital customers without their authorization.

According to the VPPA, video tape service providers, like Crunchyroll, are not allowed to reveal consumers’ personally identifiable information.

Like other businesses with an online presence, Sony collects and shares the personal data of users of their applications and websites with third parties. This is being done via software development kits (SDK), pixels, and cookies.

Hence, without proper intimation or approval from its subscribers, the defendant in the Crunchyroll lawsuit has profited by disclosing personal viewing information of their subscribers to Facebook, violating digital subscribers’ privacy and their statutory rights under the VPPA.

How is Personal Viewing Information Transferred?

Tracing Pixels

Facebook's SDK and Pixel are used by websites and apps to gather data about users' devices and actions, which is then sent to Facebook.

The Facebook tracking pixel, sometimes referred to as a "tag" or "web beacon," among other terms, is an undetectable device that monitors user behavior on Facebook advertisers' websites and sends information back to Facebook. This is a variant of the social plugin that uses Facebook code to be "rendered."

The website advertiser notifies Facebook-specific website events (such as video media) that it wishes to track in order to receive the pixel code. Facebook then provides the advertiser with the matching Facebook pixel code to embed on their website. This sharing of confidential information seems to be one of the reasons behind the Crunchyroll lawsuit.

FID

Facebook gives each user a unique, permanent identification known as an FID.

Anyone in the general public can use it to search for the user's name and Facebook profile. When a Facebook user views Crunchyroll video content on the platform, Crunchyroll uses its website code to cause the user's browser to send certain information, like the user's identity and the video content they viewed, to Facebook.

This occurs when the user has one or more personally identifiable FID cookies enabled in their browser. It is also clear from the evidence that the defendant in the Crunchyroll lawsuit, Sony, knew that Facebook’s Pixel was leaking personal viewing information to Meta.

Experiences of the Plaintiff in the Crunchyroll Lawsuit

Lisa Cuevas is reported to have initiated the Crunchyroll lawsuit.

From 2018 to 2023, the plaintiff, Lisa Cuevas, has been a digital subscriber to Crunchyroll. The plaintiff reportedly provided the following details to Crunchyroll in order to become a digital subscriber: 

• Name
• Address
• Email address
• IP address (which tells the defendant where she lives—both physically and in the city and zip code)

She receives emails and other notifications from Crunchyroll as part of her subscription. Lisa also has a Facebook profile since 2009. She has reportedly been using Crunchyroll since 2018.

Her main complaint, as well as that of the class members in the Crunchyroll lawsuit, is that neither she nor the class members gave any form of consent to share their private, confidential viewing information with Meta. Lisa also says that there was no statement of disclosure by Crunchyroll in regards to sharing personal viewing information with third parties.

This breach of privacy seems to have led to the Crunchyroll lawsuit.

More on the Lawsuit

The Crunchyroll lawsuit was filed on September 8, 2022, by the plaintiff, Lisa Cuevas, against Sony. The case was filed in US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and was presided over by judge Sara L. Ellis.

The eligibility criteria for the Crunchyroll lawsuit are mentioned below:

• They must be a citizen of the US.
• They should have been a registered user of an online website, mobile app, or any video-on-demand service or app owned, controlled, and/or operated by Crunchyroll between September 8, 2020, and September 20, 2023.
• They used the said website or app, or a website or app owned by Crunchyroll, to view content.

Although Sony denied all the allegations made against it in the Crunchyroll lawsuit, it still decided to settle for $16 million. There was a statement released saying that Sony and Crunchyroll decided to settle to avoid unnecessary expenses and any uncertainty related to the case.

Have People Received Compensation?

Yes, they have.

People who met the eligibility criteria and filled out the forms necessary for the Crunchyroll lawsuit claim to have received their share of $30 as compensation.

Although, some claim that they received less than $30 in compensation, the average amount seems to be the same.

Those who are eligible to claim compensation in the Crunchyroll lawsuit must submit a claim form before a specific deadline. They may receive compensation through one of the many electronic payment platforms.

In addition to seeking compensation, some may choose to exclude themself from the Crunchyroll lawsuit. They may do so by writing to the Settlement Administrator. This letter means you won’t get compensation, but you still reserve the right to sue the defendant concerning the privacy issue in the Crunchyroll lawsuit. The objection letter must also be submitted before a specified date.

Legal Representation

Like all cases, you need legal representation for the Crunchyroll lawsuit as well. The names of the court-appointed lawyers are listed below.

• Brandon Wise and Adam Florek (Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise, LLP)
• Michael L. Murpy (Bailey Glasser LLP)

Plaintiffs in the Crunchyroll lawsuit will not be charged for these lawyers. However, they also have the right to hire their own, should they feel they need someone else to represent them.