Redfin wants to mediate or dismiss a video privacy lawsuit
Redfin is taking a stand against the video privacy lawsuit brought against her by Guillermo Mata. On Monday, the brokerage firm filed a motion to compel arbitration or, alternatively, to dismiss the lawsuit.
Originally filed in late June in the United States District Court for the Southern District of CaliforniaThe lawsuit accuses Redfin of violating the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) by allegedly sending consumers’ personally identifiable information — including names and email addresses — to third-party companies such as Facebook older Meta And Googling older Alphabet after watching officer-shot video tours of the house.
According to the complaint, this information was sent to Reddit Inc., Metaplatforms Inc., Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc., Snap Inc. (Snapchat) and Oracle Corp.
The lawsuit alleges that Redfin “uses third-party code to track pre-recorded videos that its subscribers watch and sends that data along with the subscribers’ personally identifiable information (PII) to third-party code providers, all without valid consent from the subscribers.”
In its motion, Redfin said it is taking steps to compel arbitration “because plaintiff, as an account holder, has agreed to individual arbitration under Redfin’s terms of use.”
“Specifically, the applicable arbitration agreement between Redfin and account holders requires that any dispute, controversy, or claim between Claimant and Redfin be resolved exclusively by binding arbitration.”
According to Redfin’s filing, the plaintiff’s claims fall within the scope of the arbitration agreement “because the claims are between him and Redfin regarding his use of Redfin’s online website.”
If the court does not grant Redfin’s request to compel arbitration, the brokerage firm will ask the court to dismiss the case, finding that the plaintiff lacks standing to proceed and “has failed to to show any concrete injury.”
Redfin also notes that its data contradicts Mata’s claims, as the company says there is no record of a Guillermo Mata who subscribed to Redfin.com before February 2018 or of a Guillermo Mata who signed up after October 2018, meaning that his claim would be time-barred.
Furthermore, Redfin believes that the plaintiff has failed to bring a claim under the VPPA as he is not a legally protected consumer. The filing states that Mata “has not represented that he subscribes to any goods or services from Redfin, that no exclusive video content is available to Redfin account holders, and that any material viewed on Redfin.com is not restricted to account holders. Redfin is not a ‘videotape service provider’ under the VPPA, and Plaintiff does not allege that Redfin disclosed any specific video material he viewed on Redfin’s website.”
The company has a similar problem with Mata’s CIPA allegations, claiming that they fail because the plaintiff “does not allege that the ‘contents’ of any communications were improperly disclosed, and he does not allege facts sufficient to allege that Redfin aided and abetted third-party eavesdropping.”
