Hulu Can't Shake Privacy Suit

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United States Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler last week denied a summary judgment motion by Hulu, LLC, to dismiss a putative class action invasion of privacy suit brought by users of the on-demand streaming video Web site, according to a Reuters wire service article.

The case, In re Hulu Privacy Litigation (Case No. 11-03764I), brought in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Hulu violated the Video Privacy Protection Act ("VPPA") [Pub. L. 100-618] when it purportedly allowed access to users' viewing history to Facebook, Inc. and comScore, Inc. without the users' permission.

Hulu's unsuccessful motion to scuttle the suit argued the plaintiffs were not aggrieved persons under the VPPA because they hadn't sustained actual damages. Additionally, Hulu contended certifying plaintiffs for a class action was untenable because a substantial number of its users employ fake identities.

Judge Beeler, however, without ruling on the merits of the suit, said VPPA merely "requires only injury in the form of a wrongful disclosure," in denying the summary judgment motion. VPPA was enacted in 1987 by Congress in a knee-jerk response to the Washington, D.C. City Paper publishing a record of video store movie rentals by then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.

The plaintiffs, whom the Reuters article reported are scattered among New York, Illinois and California, want $,2500 per alleged VPPA violation, along with punitive damages and costs. They allege Hulu sent their personal viewing histories to Scorecard Research, a market research component of comScore, Inc., and to Facebook, Inc., which allegedly linked the video selections to Facebook registration data, according to the Reuters article.

Hulu is a joint venture of News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp. through Fox Broadcasting, ABC and NBC Universal, respectively. The venture is expected to generate $1 billion in revenues this year, according to Reuters.

Another motion to dismiss the case is slated to be heard in February, 2014, in which Hulu is expected to argue that it did not knowingly transmit allegedly protected data to marketing and social media outlets in violation of VPPA.

UPDATE: New York Magazine Goes Biweekly Next March

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As reported here last month (see "TUOL" post 10/17/13), New York magazine will publish every other week beginning in March 2014, according to articles in The New York Times and The Wrap.

The 45-year-old magazine founded by Clay Felker, once the hub of "New Journalism" where writers such as Nora Ephon, Jimmy Breslin and Tom Wolfe flourished, hopes to realize $3.5 million in savings by cutting back 13 issues. The magazine will continue to publish its special issues devoted to the best doctors, food & drink and gift guide, according to The Wrap.

The magazine also will be rolling out a new style makeover. Although New York nabbed a 2013 best magazine award from the American Society of Magazine Editors, it has not escaped the dwindling ad pages and circulation drop-off that have plagued periodicals. Alliance for Audited Media figures place the magazine's subscriber base at 400,000, but ad pages this year declined 9.2 percent compared to year-ago figures.

At the same time, digital traffic is up 19 percent to nine million unique visitors monthly, according to comScore. The Times reported that the magazine plans to hire 15 staffers to bolster online content and ad sales.

New York is owned by the heirs of Bruce Wasserstein, who purchased the magazine in 2004 before his death in 2009.

Web Ads Displayed, but Ignored, Study Says

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Companies doling out serious scratch for prominent online display ads will be distressed to learn that 46 percent of visitors to Web sites don't even see the ads, according to a new study reported in Ad Age.

ComScore's Validated Campaign Essentials ("VCE") tracking service found viewability of online ads by Web visitors was nothing to write home about, ComScore chair Gian Fulgoni told attendees this week in New York City at the Advertising Research Foundation Audience Measurement 8.0 Conference, Ad Age reported. Twenty-two of the nation's 25 largest advertisers subscribe to the VCE service.

Adhering to the minimum standard endorsed by the Media Rating Council and Making Measurement Make Sense(3MS), Comscore measures viewability by considering an online ad viewable if a minimum 50 percent of pixels are visible to a site visitor for at least a half-second. The Ad Age article noted the importance of viewability to companies, citing how a 40 percent jump in viewability of digital ads by Kellogg yielded a 75 percent increase in sales life from online advertising.

Newspaper Websites Visits Soar: Where's the Ad Revenue?

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The Newspaper National Network reports that the number of visitors to online newspapers in the 25 largest media markets continues to soar, climbing to 83.7 million unique visitors in April 2010, a 15 percent increase over January 2010 figures.

Based on the NNN's comScore measure, that translates to 2 billion page views last month, compared to 1.6 billion page views in January 2010, a 24 percent increase. The numbers are equally encouraging in the top 10 media markets, which saw a 15 percent boost in April figures compared to January.

The percentage increase in visitors at the online newspaper sites outdistanced the numbers at CNN.com and The Huffington Post. The devoted staff of "TUOL" is clearly in the minority when it turns the pages of the morning daily while downing coffee at the breakfast table.