The Second Circuit Is Done With Meta Pixels VPPA Cases–Hughes v. NFL

July 22, 2025 · by · in Privacy/Security

In May 2025, the Second Circuit rejected a Meta Pixels case based on the VPPA. See Solomon v. Flipps. Another VPPA Meta Pixels case came back to the Second Circuit, and it only took a short memo opinion to dismiss it. The court summarizes:

Hughes alleges that the NFL violated the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”) by installing the Facebook Pixel (the “Pixel”) onto its website and app. The Pixel is a string of code that can be installed onto a website/app and shares certain information about users with Facebook. The principal question now is whether Hughes can still plead a viable VPPA claim against the NFL in light of our decision in Solomon. We conclude that he cannot.

Click on the image for the animation

The court says flatly: “Solomon effectively shut the door for Pixel-based VPPA claims” because the unique Pixel identifier placed on the plaintiff’s device doesn’t qualify as the kind of personally identifiable information governed by the VPPA.

To get around Solomon, the plaintiff argued:

that, if permitted to amend his complaint, he would allege that: (1) Facebook receives communications from the Pixel “in a way that is automatically translated into a readable format and is displayed (or is displayable) on a user interface as plain text”; (2) an ordinary person could plug the code into “ubiquitous internet-based tools like ChatGPT” to “translate the code to reveal the Facebook ID and video title in plain English”; and (3) 75% of Americans have a Facebook account.

The court doesn’t want to hear it:

None of these arguments supports a VPPA claim post-Solomon. In Solomon, we focused on whether an ordinary person would be able to understand the actual underlying code communication itself, regardless of how the code is later manipulated or used by Facebook. The existence of tools like ChatGPT, which were also prevalent at the time Solomon was decided, would not alter our conclusion in this case. Finally, the ubiquity of Facebook accounts has no bearing on the ability of ordinary people to interpret the Pixel communications depicted in Hughes’ complaint.

I half-expected the Second Circuit to include a bright red STOP SIGN in the opinion.

This opinion ought to end the Meta Pixel VPPA cases, at least in the Second Circuit. But it will barely make a dent in the hundreds of other Pixel cases that have flooded the courts.

Case Citation: Hughes v. National Football League, 2025 WL 1720295 (2d Cir. June 20, 2025)

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