Lawsuit Alleges Ubisoft Illegally Shared Users' Data with Meta

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Another day, another fire for the folks over at Ubisoft to put out. The French firm is now facing a class action lawsuit that alleges it illegally shared personally identifiable information harvested from users of the Ubisoft Store with Meta, formerly Facebook.

As PC Gamer chronicles, the Ubisoft Store and associated Ubisoft+ subscription services aren't mentioned much, but they presumably do enough business to justify their continued existence. That means names, addresses, credit card information, the whole shebang.

Because we live in a mildly dystopian age, the lawsuit alleges that what users look at and purchase from the Ubisoft Store is tracked via Meta's Pixel tool for "retargeting" without their consent. Retargeting, or remarketing, is (apparently) a marketing practice companies use to convince people to make repeat or additional purchases.

From what we understand, this is pretty standard practice. But this specific lawsuit alleges that Ubisoft shared data with Meta, whose employees presumably include "any person of ordinary technical skill who received that data" without disclosure, and that this is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, the Federal Wiretap Act, and the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

Plaintiffs Trevor Lakes and Alex Rajjoub, who purchased multiple games from the Ubisoft Store, seek "individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated" financial damages. Further, they want an order compelling Ubisoft to ditch Pixel or first gain users' consent, presumably in checkbox form. Ubisoft declined to comment on the case.

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Will Ubisoft catch a break one of these days? While the case has not yet received full class action certification, will you throw your legal hat in the ring if it does? Seek counsel in the comments section below.

[source courtlistener.com, via pcgamer.com]

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About Khayl Adam

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

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Comments 15

• 1
• Bigmanfan
• 2:16am

Truly an iconic Ubisoft moment.

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• ShogunRok
• 2:20am

Aiden Pearce would be rolling in his grave

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• Torque
• 2:21am

This creamy expired cheese pie is hitting the fan. Ubisoft is getting what they deserve. A creamy expired cheese pie.

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• IamJT
• 2:22am

Always opt out, set full privacy, etc. Technology is moving extremely fast and you never know the use case for your data. If you live in a country/state with strong data privacy laws that’s a plus… but laws are reactive to the use case and not proactive.

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• Jayslow
• 2:25am

I'm shocked! I've always assumed Facebook has all of our data anyway.

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• LuXifer
• 2:28am

We all know it, but that dosen't make it any less scummy. It's good that people shine a light in it and hopefully bring some changes.

It's insane to me how slow legislators are to react to the tech industry. But in the end I guess we're all just commodity. Abuse your consumers trust and turn players into payers. 💯

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• CieloAzure
• 2:29am

Amazing 👏👏👏

Only Ubisoft can out do Ubisoft.

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• Rhaoulos
• 2:41am

A friend used to say "if it's free, that means you are the product". But in recent years, it also applies to paid items and "services".

Also Abstergo is clearly a less evil version of Ubisoft.

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• twitchtvpat
• 2:44am

don't all sites do this though? not calling you guys out because every site has trackers , but having apple+ blocks all site trackers , and it said there was 98 trackers blocked using pushsquare , how is it any different from ubi soft selling info to meta , when sites make money using trackers to send data for advertisements. its an honest question.

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• IamJT
• 3:03am

@twitchtvpat It’s not much different at all. The only difference would be if the user knows their data is being sold.

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• LavenderShroud
• 3:41am

Another week, another Ubisoft article. I’d honestly be surprised if they make it through the year. Low stocks, considering a buyout, and now this? There’s no way they’ll make it.

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• 12
• Drago201
• 3:42am

Who hasn't by now 😅

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• 13
• anon_pel222
• 3:49am

Ubi - a pro consumer in each and every aspect... Hats off 🫡

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• nessisonett
• 4:33am

This is typical of basically any website. Horrific for sure but very very common. Which makes me think this lawsuit has been brought forward by people with a bone to pick.

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• NEStalgia
• 58m ago

I'd be annoyed that I just bought 3 games on the Ubisoft store this week. But then I remembered I've bought twice as much on the Meta quest store so I guess it's a wash.

@Rhaoulos But isn't Abstergo, technically the one responsible for all the map markers?

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