The Supreme Court heard arguments October 14 in Salazar v. Paramount Global, a case asking how a law born in the video-store era applies to modern online tracking. The Salazar v. Paramount video privacy dispute is not about whether VHS deserves a comeback. It is about who counts as a protected consumer when a company provides both videos and other services.
Michael Salazar subscribed to a free newsletter from Paramount-owned 247Sports.com. He alleges that the site disclosed his video-viewing information to Facebook without his consent. The lawsuit invokes the Video Privacy Protection Act, enacted in 1988 after the disclosure of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s rental history. Apparently the embarrassing checkout record survived the video store and acquired a much larger distribution department.
The lower courts rejected Salazar’s claim because his newsletter subscription did not establish the audiovisual consumer relationship they considered necessary. He argues that the statute covers subscribers to any goods or services from a qualifying video provider. Paramount argues that the relationship must concern audiovisual goods or services. Those are competing readings of the law; an allegation about data sharing is not itself a final finding of liability.
As Roll Call reported from the argument, justices pressed questions about applying old statutory language to a changed advertising economy. The outcome could affect many tracking lawsuits, but argument-day questions are not a published judgment. No final Supreme Court ruling in this case is being announced here.
Analysis: the phrase “free newsletter” describes the subscription price, not necessarily the information exchanged around it. Users may think of signing up for sports updates and watching a clip as separate everyday acts. A legal definition can connect or separate them in ways that determine whether a lawsuit gets through the door. That is why a seemingly narrow argument over one noun can matter to a very large number of people.
There is also a real difference between interpreting an existing privacy statute and writing the comprehensive internet policy everyone wishes Congress had already supplied. Courts must work with the language they have. Businesses and users must then live with the boundary that language creates. The resulting gap is not repaired by a cookie banner that requires more concentration than programming a VCR.
For now, the case remains pending. Its central question is concrete: does subscribing to a provider’s non-video service make someone a consumer protected against disclosure of their viewing history? The answer will come in an opinion, not in a screenshot of whichever justice sounded most skeptical during questioning. Be kind, rewind, and read the actual ruling when it arrives.
Sources and photograph
Roll Call, Michael Macagnone, October 14, 2026. Cornell Legal Information Institute, case background.
File photograph of the Supreme Court entrance; not the October 14 argument. Photo: Don Ramey Logan; CC BY-SA 4.0. Display copy resized. Original photograph and rights record. License terms.
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