NFL is Latest Target in Lawsuits Over Data-Sharing With Meta

The National Football League was sued for allegedly sharing digital subscribers’ personal data with Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, becoming the latest target of consumers claiming companies pass on private information to the social media site without their consent.

NFL.com subscriber Israel James of Illinois sued the league in Chicago federal court Wednesday seeking to represent hundreds of thousands of other subscribers of the website in a class action.

The world’s largest social network has been sued and investigated by regulators over privacy issues over the last decade, most often over allegations that the company illegally collects information on users that it uses for targeted advertising.

In his lawsuit, James claims the NFL installed a Facebook pixel on its website -- a computer code that tracks when digital subscribers enter NFL.com or NFL.com’s accompanying app and view videos.

NFL.com tracks and discloses to Facebook the digital subscribers’ viewed videos, and most notably, the digital subscribers’ Facebook ID, according to the complaint. ‘This occurs even when the digital subscriber has not shared (nor consented to share) such information,’ James said in the complaint.