A federal judge in Dallas has kept alive a woman’s lawsuit against Blockbuster and the way it offers information to the social networking site Facebook by denying the movie rental giant's request to move the case to arbitration, an attorney for the plaintiff said Tuesday.
Jeremy R. Wilson, one of the plaintiff’s attorney’s in the class-action lawsuit, said U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Lynn held that Blockbuster’s online arbitration agreement would not hold because the agreement allows Blockbuster too much discretion in manipulating its terms.The decision stems from a complaint filed by Cathryn Elaine Harris of Dallas against Blockbuster.
In the lawsuit, Harris alleged the video giant violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits firms or parties from disclosing information about a private individual’s video rental activities. The original complaint against Blockbuster filed by Harris says Blockbuster violated this act when an agreement Blockbuster had with Facebook allowed the Web site to generate information about Harris’ movie rental activity and then publish the information on Harris’ FaceBook profile, court records say.
