Crunchyroll is being sued by affected users for allegedly sharing user viewing habits and personal information to a third party company without consent.
Crunchyroll is being hit with a class action lawsuit in the United States. The suit alleges that the popular anime streaming platform is in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). The lawsuit was filed on 5 March, and included a number of named plaintiffs.
According to the suit, the plaintiffs claim that Crunchyroll disclosed personally identifiable information, such as email addresses, device IDs, and streaming data to a third party without prior consent. The third party has been revealed to be a marketing company called “Braze”, and its software development kit. The software development kit enabled the Crunchyroll application to push in-app messages, notifications, and email campaigns.
Lawsuit alleges Crunchyroll has been disclosing user information without consent since at least 2022
Segments of the lawsuit publicly available allege that Crunchyroll's disclosure of user data to Braze was not done with informed, written consent, and did not occur within the “ordinary course of business”–meaning that the data given to Braze were not incidental to “debt collection, order fulfillment, request processing, or transfer of ownership.
The lawsuit further alleges that the disclosures were made for ”marketing, user engagement, and commercial purposes that are not necessary to fulfill Crunchyroll's core service of providing video streaming."
Given the nature of the allegations, the lawsuit against Crunchyroll is pursuing certification of two subclasses of consumers:
- Subclass 1: Minor Subscriber Class; which includes underaged subscribers living in the United States
- Subclass 2: Adult Subscriber Class; which includes of-age subscribers living in the United States
Furthermore, the plaintiffs are seeking damages of US$2,500 per VPPA violation, as well as reasonable attorney's fees, and other litigation costs.
This lawsuit comes after Crunchyroll's recent US$16 million settlement in 2023, after a similar Privacy Class Action Suit was filed against the company, where Crunchyroll submitted user data information to third party companies like Facebook, Google Analytics, and Adobe Analytics, which was also in violation of VPPA.
Crunchyroll denied the claims, but agreed to settle to avoid further uncertainties and expenses associated with the case.