Pandora Radio Privacy Class Action Lawsuit

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Pandora Media, Inc. (NASDAQ: P) has been hit with a federal class action lawsuit that accuses the popular Internet radio site of violating state law by intentionally disclosing its users’ private music listening histories.

The Pandora class action lawsuit centers on the fact that Pandora.com users build customized music “stations” based on their inputted musical preferences so that they can hear a continuous steam of songs tailored to their taste. These stations are then catalogued by Pandora and stored on the user’s personalized profile page.

The problem, the Pandora class action lawsuit says, is that Pandora promises users it will safeguard their private music listening histories through their Privacy Policy, but “Unfortunately, Pandora has willfully violated its users’ privacy rights in at least two primary ways:

“First, Pandora asserted that users’ profile pages – containing information such as user name, musical preferences, favorite songs, and listening history – would be available solely to other registered Pandora users, and obtainable only to those registered users with knowledge of an individual’s unique-mail address. Instead, Pandora made these records publicly available and searchable on the World Wide Web for anyone to view.“Second, in April of 2010, Pandora unilaterally intenerated its users’ profile pages with their Facebook accounts. As a result, Pandora released sensitive listening records to all of its users’ Facebook ‘friends.’ Moreover, any privacy afforded to individuals using pseudonymous e-mail address was destroyed, as the Facebook integration automatically correlated users’ existing user names with their actual names, and automatically made users’ musical preferences immediately available to all their Facebook contacts.”

According to the Pandora Radio class action lawsuit, this constitutes a violation of the Michigan Video Rights Protection Act (VPRA), which protects Michigan citizens from this very type of disclosure by prohibiting companies from releasing records containing information about a person’s music listening history.

“Pandora’s intentional disclosure of its Michigan users’ personal music listening history records demonstrates a fundamental disregard for their legal rights to privacy,” the Pandora privacy class action lawsuit states. “Because of Pandora’s reckless decision to disclose this information, Plaintiff and the Classes are entitled to statutory damages of $5,000 per person under the VPRA.”

The Pandora Radio class action lawsuit is brought on behalf of two proposed Classes: (1) all Michigan residents who registered as users or subscribers to Pandora’s services before August 5, 2010, and (2) all Michigan residents whose Pandora account was automatically integrated with a Facebook account before August 5, 2010.

The Pandora class action lawsuit is seeking certification of the proposed Classes, $5,000 per Class Member, court fees, attorneys’ fees and more.

A copy of the Pandora Radio Privacy Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.

The case is Peter Deacon v. Pandora Media, Inc., Case No. 11-cv-4674, United States District Court, Northern District of California.