Online service providers often collect user data for marketing, which frequently includes sharing the information with third parties. For example, a company that hosts videos or blogs on its website usually includes a “like” button or other social networking plug-in that transmits data from user cookies to those social networking sites. Consumers and web users who find this transmission of data an invasion of privacy can, with the help of the plaintiffs’ bar, sue under various privacy statutes for alleged damages arising out of this practice.

It is still far from clear what techniques are permitted and which ones cross the line. But recent rulings, by U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in an important lawsuit in California, In re Hulu Privacy Litigation, 2014 WL 2758598 (N. D. Cal.), and by New Jersey Federal Judge Stanley Cheslar in a case involving Viacom and Google, have provided some guidance.

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