Zumba Fitness Shared Users’ Data with Meta, Pinterest, Suit Says

Zumba Fitness LLC shared the personal information and viewing history of tens of thousands of its website’s users with Meta Platforms Inc. and Pinterest Inc. without their consent, violating a federal video privacy law, a proposed class action said.

Zumba’s website, which includes fitness videos, employed embedded Meta Pixel software that tracked users’ activity, collected personal information, and disclosed it to third parties without their knowledge, according to a complaint filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The pixel transmitted Zumba site users’ names and email addresses to Meta, the complaint said, as well as the URLs of webpages they visited and the type of they content purchased. The website also deployed a Pinterest tracking code—dubbed the Pinterest Tag—that operates similarly and shared similar data with that company, it said.

Named plaintiffs Catherine Kueppers and Kathleen Summy—residents of Florida and Wisconsin, respectively—both purchased on-demand access to Zumba instructor training course videos on the website, according to the complaint. They accused the company of violating the federal Video Privacy Protection Act by sharing their personal data.

The VPPA makes it illegal for “video tape service providers” to disclose consumers’ personally identifiable information or viewing data to a third party without first obtaining their consent. Zumba qualifies as a service provider under the statute, the complaint said, because it sells and provides access to prerecorded video materials to consumers on its site.

Courts have been grappling with how to apply the law’s 1980s definitions—such as that providers offer “video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials”—to more modern-day technologies amid a surge in complaints invoking the law for digital services. After a year of increasing dismissals of VPPA cases, a Second Circuit ruling last week reinstating a proposed class action against the NBA under the statute reversed that trend, potentially bolstering current cases and fueling more litigation.

The proposed class action asks the court to prevent Zumba from further sharing viewing histories with third parties. It also seeks punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.

Zumba didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hedin LLP represents the plaintiffs.

This case is Kueppers et al v. Zumba Fitness, LLC, S.D. Fla., No. 0:24-cv-61983, complaint filed 10/23/24.