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 case, Salazar v. Paramount Global, concerns the Video Privacy Protection Act, or VPPA. Michael Salazar alleges that Paramount's 247Sports.com shared information about videos he watched with Facebook without his consent. Paramount says his newsletter subscription did not make him a consumer of its video services. The Court heard argument on that question on October 14; it has not decided whether Paramount violated the law.
Salazar subscribed to a newsletter offered by 247Sports.com, a sports website operated by Paramount. According to his allegations, he watched videos on the website while logged into Facebook. He says a tracking pixel transmitted his Facebook identifier and information identifying the videos to Facebook. Those are allegations in a lawsuit, not findings made after a trial.
The district court dismissed his claim, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed in April 2025. Its reading of the statute required a subscription to audiovisual goods or services, rather than any product offered by a company that delivers video. A newsletter subscription was not enough. The Supreme Court granted review in January and heard argument on October 14.
That makes the case narrower than a general referendum on online tracking. The question is whether the phrase "goods or services from a video tape service provider" includes all of that provider's offerings or only audiovisual ones. Who is protected comes before whether a particular disclosure is unlawful.
Congress enacted the VPPA in 1988 after a journalist obtained and published the video-rental history of Robert Bork, then a Supreme Court nominee. The law's vocabulary reflects that moment, but its definitions also refer to "similar audio visual materials," not only cassette tapes.
The statute defines a consumer as "any renter, purchaser, or subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider." It generally bars a provider from knowingly disclosing personally identifiable information about such a consumer, subject to specified exceptions. Protected information includes information identifying a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services.
The difference between those definitions matters: one identifies the person protected, the other the information protected. Salazar says Congress used broad words for the first and video-specific words for the second, and courts should respect that choice.
The law also provides a civil lawsuit and potential monetary relief. Its damages provision allows actual damages, with liquidated damages of at least $2,500, as well as possible punitive damages, legal costs and other relief. That does not mean every person who watches an online video automatically receives $2,500.
Two readings of the same sentence
Salazar's argument starts with the absence of an audiovisual qualifier before "goods or services." A newsletter, he says, is a service from a video provider. Adding a requirement that the subscription itself be for videos inserts words Congress did not write. His brief contrasts that definition with the statute's express reference to "video materials or services" when it describes personally identifiable information.
Paramount reads the words together. In its view, "from a video tape service provider" connects the consumer relationship to the audiovisual business that makes the company a video provider in the first place. Rental, purchase and subscription describe transactions for those offerings, rather than unrelated merchandise or a non-video newsletter.
The disagreement is therefore about text and context, not simply whether privacy is desirable. Salazar says the broader reading follows the enacted language. Paramount says the same language, read within the statute's structure and purpose, has a video-specific limit. Both positions claim fidelity to Congress's words.
Other federal appeals courts have reached different answers. A legal analysis published by Finnegan on October 12 describes broader readings in the Second and Seventh Circuits and narrower readings in the Sixth and D.C. Circuits. It also notes differences within those narrower approaches. The Supreme Court's decision could give lower courts a common rule for the disputed consumer definition.
Why the definition matters online
A website can offer a newsletter, written articles and videos without requiring separate subscriptions for each. For users, those experiences may feel like one relationship. For the VPPA, the exact relationship may determine whether the person can bring a claim about identifiable video-viewing information.
Privacy advocates see a risk in drawing the boundary too narrowly. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, which filed a brief supporting Salazar, argues that modern tracking can connect viewing habits to an individual's account. A rule that excludes newsletter subscribers could leave some users outside this law even when the information disclosed concerns videos they watched. That is EPIC's position, not the Court's conclusion.
Paramount warns about the opposite boundary. Its brief argues that treating purchases or subscriptions to unrelated offerings as enough would turn a targeted video-privacy statute into a much wider internet-privacy regime, with substantial class-action exposure. The scope of liability is part of what makes a short definition consequential.
What Wednesday's argument showed
An argument is not a verdict, and the Court does not announce decision dates; October cases are typically decided by early summer. But eighty-five minutes of questioning showed where each reading strains.
Justice Clarence Thomas opened by pressing Salazar's lawyer, Joshua Hammack: wouldn't it be natural to think that goods or services from a video tape service provider "would be video-related services"? Hammack said Congress wrote three definitions with three scopes on purpose: "prerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audiovisual materials" for providers, "video materials or services" for the protected information, and unmodified "goods or services" for consumers.
Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett pushed on breadth. Kavanaugh noted VPPA suits against "every sector of the economy" — chess websites, universities, sports leagues — and asked what makes a site "engaged in the business" of delivering video: "Two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, 10 minutes?" Barrett imagined a shopper clicking a video on Nordstrom's website to see shoes on a model: that is "a profit motive," bringing in "Chick-fil-A and basically every other business."
Paul Clement, for Paramount, faced pressure of his own. Chief Justice John Roberts said his examples were "particularly helpful" to his side: "I would think your job is to focus on the hard ones." Justice Elena Kagan said his reading writes in a modifier Congress left out: the definition says "goods and services," not "audiovisual goods and services." Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the "linchpin" of his argument — tying consumer status to the transaction that generates protected information — is refuted by the statute's other provisions. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's hard hypothetical: a customer buys a book about French films at a video store and sees his in-store viewing history sold to a reporter, all without buying a video.
The practical stakes cut both ways. Clement warned that Salazar's reading means roughly "$250 million of liability in this case alone" — the $2,500 damages floor across an alleged class of 100,000-plus subscribers. Kagan answered that going forward the fix is simple: consent is easy to get, and the alternative is simpler still. "Take your pick." Sotomayor was blunter: "If you want to stay in the business, get consent, or just don't do it."
Justice Neil Gorsuch asked whether "similar audiovisual materials" might require full-length works on physical tapes, as a newspaper-industry brief argues; Clement said, "I am going to take that position" — a stance that could narrow the law's reach over streaming. Asked by Barrett whether Paramount concedes Salazar's standing to sue, Clement declined to answer and offered supplemental briefing. In rebuttal, Hammack said the law protects "any consumer of such provider," and the wave of lawsuits traces the spread of tracking pixels. Chief Justice Roberts closed the session: "The case is submitted."
Even a broader definition would not settle every tracking dispute. The provider, information, knowledge and disclosure requirements would still matter, along with the statute's exceptions. Informed written consent, including qualifying electronic consent, is one permitted route for disclosure.
For readers, the useful distinction is between watching a video, having a legally relevant relationship with its provider, and agreeing to disclosure of viewing information. Salazar asks where the second boundary belongs. The Court's answer could decide whether the modern newsletter signup is outside an old privacy law or one of the relationships that brings its protection into reach.
Sources
U.S. Supreme Court, docket 25-459: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-459.html
U.S. Supreme Court, oral argument transcript, October 14, 2026: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2026/25-459_1a7d.pdf
U.S. Supreme Court, oral argument audio, October 14, 2026: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2026/25-459
Salazar's merits brief, April 17, 2026: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-459/404775/20260417185334778%5F25-459%5FPetitioner%20Brief.pdf
Paramount's merits brief, June 23, 2026: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-459/413862/20260623121413751_25-459%20Paramount%20Merits%20Response%20Brief.pdf
18 U.S.C. 2710, Cornell Legal Information Institute: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2710
Amy Howe, SCOTUSblog argument preview, October 12, 2026: https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/10/court-to-hear-argument-on-how-a-video-privacy-law-applies-in-the-internet-age/
Finnegan, "Who Is a Consumer?", October 12, 2026: https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/who-is-a-consumer-the-supreme-court-takes-up-the-video-privacy-protection-act.html
EPIC, case page and position: https://epic.org/documents/salazar-v-paramount-global/
Esmé Brooks
October 14, 2026