HousingWireHousingWire
Redfin is taking a stand against the video privacy lawsuit filed against it by Guillermo Mata. On Monday, the brokerage firm filed a motion to compel arbitration or, alternatively, to dismiss the suit.
Originally filed in late June in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, the suit accuses Redfin of violating the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) by allegedly sending consumers’ personally identifiable data — including names and email addresses — to third-party firms such as Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet after they viewed agent-created video home tours.
According to the suit, this data was sent to Reddit Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc., Snap Inc. (Snapchat) and Oracle Corp.
The suit alleges that Redfin “uses third-party code to track prerecorded videos its subscribers watch and sends that data to its third-party code vendors along with subscribers’ personally identifiable information (PII), all without its subscribers’ valid consent.”
In its motion, Redfin said it is moving to compel arbitration “because Plaintiff, as an account holder, agreed to individual arbitration pursuant to the Redfin Terms of Use.”
“Specifically, the applicable arbitration agreement between Redfin and account holders requires that any dispute, controversy, or claim between Plaintiff and Redfin be resolved solely by binding arbitration.”
According to Redfin’s filing, the plaintiff’s claims fall within the scope of the arbitration agreement “because the claims are between him and Redfin over his use of Redfin’s online website.”
If the court does not grant Redfin’s motion to compel arbitration, the brokerage firm is asking that the court dismiss the suit, as it feels the plaintiff lacks the standing to proceed and has “failed to plead any concrete injury.”
Redfin also notes that its records contradict Mata’s claims, as the company said there are no records of a Guillermo Mata subscribed to Redfin.com before February 2018 or one that logged on anytime after October 2018, meaning that his claim would be time-barred.
Additionally, Redfin believes that the plaintiff has failed to state a claim under the VPPA as he is not a consumer protected by the law. The filing states that Mata “has not alleged he is a subscriber of goods or services from Redfin, there is no exclusive video content available to Redfin account holders and any material viewed on Redfin.com is not limited to account holders, Redfin is not a ‘videotape service provider’ under the VPPA, and Plaintiff does not allege that Redfin disclosed any specific video material he viewed on Redfin’s website.”
The company takes similar issue with Mata’s CIPA allegations, claiming that they fail because the plaintiff “does not allege that the ‘contents’ of any communications were improperly disclosed, and he does not allege facts sufficient to state a claim that Redfin has aided and abetted any third party’s wiretapping.”
