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The Supreme Court is considering whether the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) protects people who subscribe to a company’s non-video service but watch videos on its website. In Salazar v. Paramount Global, No. 25-459, the justices heard oral argument on October 14, 2026. The case arose after Michael Salazar alleged that Paramount shared his Facebook identifier and video-viewing history with Facebook without consent. The Court had not issued a ruling in the latest reported posture.
What Salazar v. Paramount Global is about
Salazar subscribed to Paramount’s 247Sports online newsletter, a free written publication, and also watched videos on the site. He alleges that Paramount disclosed information linking his Facebook ID to the videos he viewed, allowing Facebook to use the data for targeted advertising.
The dispute is not primarily about whether websites can contain video. It is about who qualifies as a “consumer” under a statute written when people rented physical videotapes. Salazar says subscribing to any service from a company that provides video is enough. Paramount says the subscription must be for audiovisual goods or services covered by the law.
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Congress enacted the VPPA, 18 U.S.C. §2710, in 1988 after a newspaper published Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s video-rental history. The list contained 146 movies, according to the Associated Press in 2026. The law’s terminology reflects that videotape-rental era, but its privacy rule now reaches disputes involving websites, social-media identifiers and online advertising.
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- Consumer, §2710(a)(1): a “renter, purchaser, or subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider.”
- Personally identifiable information, §2710(a)(3): information identifying a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services.
- Disclosure rule, §2710(b)(1): a provider may not knowingly disclose personally identifiable information concerning a consumer without consent.
The statute does not expressly say whether “goods or services” includes every service sold by a video provider or only audiovisual services. That unresolved wording is the question presented to the Court.
The precise legal question
The Supreme Court granted review on January 26, 2026, after the Sixth Circuit. The justices are deciding whether “goods or services from a video tape service provider” means all goods and services offered by a company that provides video, or only that company’s audiovisual goods and services.
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How the two interpretations differ
| Issue | Salazar’s interpretation | Paramount’s interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Textual scope | “Goods or services” is broad and is not limited by the type of subscription. | The phrase must be read in the VPPA’s audiovisual context and limited to video-related offerings. |
| Salazar’s subscription | Subscribing to Paramount’s newsletter made him a consumer of a video tape service provider while he used its video features. | A free written newsletter is not an audiovisual rental, purchase or subscription covered by the statute. |
| Free newsletters and ad-funded sites | Websites that combine written products, video and memberships could still owe VPPA duties to subscribers. | The broader reading would pull ordinary free content and advertising relationships into a law aimed at video rentals. |
| Consent and disclosure | Sharing a Facebook ID together with viewing history can be a prohibited disclosure when the user has not consented. | The VPPA should not apply unless the person obtained a qualifying audiovisual good or service in the first place. |
| Targeted advertising and litigation | A broad rule would give viewers stronger protection when tracking tools connect identities to particular videos. | A broad rule could turn the VPPA into an unadministrable restriction on targeted online advertising and increase litigation exposure for publishers. |
Why the case matters beyond Paramount
Many modern publishers offer several products through one domain: articles, newsletters, streaming clips, memberships and advertising. A ruling for Salazar could make the type of subscription—not just the act of watching a video—important in determining VPPA coverage. A company might face a claim from someone who paid nothing for video but subscribed to a newsletter and then viewed clips.
Paramount’s position would keep the statute closer to its original video-rental function. Under that approach, a person’s relationship with a company would generally have to involve obtaining audiovisual material or an audiovisual service before the VPPA’s disclosure prohibition applied. The decision could therefore affect how publishers separate newsletter accounts, video systems and advertising technology.
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What happened at oral argument
During the October 14 argument, Justice Elena Kagan told Paramount lawyer Paul Clement: “Going forward, you have two very simple solutions. One is to get consent. Easy enough. People do it every day. And the other is to stop selling people’s private information. Take your pick.” The Associated Press reported the exchange.
The justices’ eventual opinion will determine how the statutory text applies to the newsletter-and-video combination in this case. The ruling could affirm, reverse or otherwise send the dispute back for further proceedings, but the Court had not announced its vote, reasoning or any remedy in the latest reported posture.
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What viewers and website operators should understand now
- The case does not establish that every video view shared with Facebook violates the VPPA.
- It also does not establish that newsletter subscribers are outside the law’s protection.
- Coverage turns on the provider’s role, the service the person obtained, the information disclosed and whether consent was given.
- The Supreme Court’s decision will provide the controlling interpretation of the “goods or services” language for this dispute.
Until the Court rules, the legal status of mixed services—such as a written newsletter paired with online video—remains unsettled under the VPPA’s consumer definition.
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