Lawsuit Alleges Ubisoft Illegally Shared Users' Data with Meta | Push Square

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Another day, another fire for the folks over at Ubisoft to put out. The French firm is now facing a class action lawsuit that alleges it illegally shared personally identifiable information harvested from users of the Ubisoft Store with Meta, formerly Facebook.

As PC Gamer chronicles, the Ubisoft Store and associated Ubisoft+ subscription services aren't mentioned much, but they presumably do enough business to justify their continued existence. That means names, addresses, credit card information, the whole shebang.

Because we live in a mildly dystopian age, the lawsuit alleges that what users look at and purchase from the Ubisoft Store is tracked via Meta's Pixel tool for «retargeting» without their consent. Retargeting, or remarketing, is (apparently) a marketing practice companies use to convince people to make repeat or additional purchases.

From what we understand, this is pretty standard practice. But this specific lawsuit alleges that Ubisoft shared data with Meta, whose employees presumably include «any person of ordinary technical skill who received that data» without disclosure, and that this is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, the Federal Wiretap Act, and the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

Plaintiffs Trevor Lakes and Alex Rajjoub, who purchased multiple games from the Ubisoft Store, seek «individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated» financial damages. Further, they want an order compelling Ubisoft to ditch Pixel or first gain users' consent, presumably in checkbox form. Ubisoft declined to comment on the case.

Corporate machinations

When it rains, it pours

Will Ubisoft catch a break one of these days? While the case has not yet received full class action certification, will you throw your legal hat in the ring if it does? Seek counsel in the comments section below.

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation