Two US-based players have filed a class action lawsuit against Ubisoft for allegedly sharing its online store users’ Personally Identifying Information with Meta.
The lawsuit was filed on October 3, 2024 at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, as shown on Court Listener. The two plaintiffs filed the suit on behalf of “themselves and all others similarly situated.”
They alleged that when purchasing a game via Ubisoft’s store (or accessing it as a Ubisoft+ subscriber) while logged into their Facebook account, users PII “would be captured by the Meta Platforms tracking Pixel utilised by [Ubisoft], and then transferred to Meta thereby exposing the subscribers’ PII to any person of ordinary technical skill who received that data.”
“The Video Privacy Protection Act prohibits video tape service providers, such as [Ubisoft], from sharing PII,” the lawsuit noted. “[Ubisoft] purposefully implemented and utilised the Pixel, which tracks user activity on [its] website and discloses that information to Facebook to gather valuable marketing data.”
The lawsuit also clarified that Meta’s Pixel tool can’t be placed on a website without the “knowledge and cooperation” of the website owner, in this case Ubisoft.
“[Ubisoft] does not seek, and have not obtained, consent from PII Users to utilise the Pixel to track, share, and exchange their PII with Facebook,” it continued.
The plaintiffs said that they “privacy interests” were violated by the situation, with the lawsuit adding: “This threat of injury to plaintiffs from the continuous violations requires temporary, preliminary, and permanent injunctive relief to ensure their PII is protected from future disclosure without adequate notice and consent.”
