A US actress has lodged a $1 million lawsuit against Amazon accusing the Internet giant of revealing her age on the film industry website IMDB by using personal details from her credit card.
The actress, who asked for her identity to be masked and is referred to only as "Jane Doe," has launched the suit for damages and interests with the Western District Court of Washington state, in northwestern Seattle.
She is alleging fraud, breach of contract and violation of her private life, as well as her consumer rights.
According to the suit, the actress, who is of Asian descent, changed her name to make it more American and has never wanted to reveal her age in order to maximize her chances of obtaining film roles.
Since 2003 her profile has been available on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), which is owned by Amazon, when she joined the site as an unknown actress.
In 2008 to increase her exposure, she subscribed to IMDbPro which offers "insider information" to paying clients. To join the service, the actress had to hand over her credit card details.
"Shortly after subscribing to IMDbPro, plaintiff noticed that her legal date of birth had been added to her public acting profile in the Internet Movie Database, revealing to the public that plaintiff is many years older than she looks," the lawsuit states.
Swashbuckler !!+SaaZSjSE joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later[^][v]#236,972
I think she has a point. Do you? Also, I did not know Amazon owned IMDB.
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 1 minute later, 4 minutes after the original post[^][v]#236,974
I wonder who she'll try to sue once her identity hits the net.
Ks !KansasxqvM joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later, 6 minutes after the original post[^][v]#236,977
Sounds like she has a case, as silly as it may seem. I like Amazon and IMDB though, so fuck her.
cccuuunnttt !nIGga.SL0w (OP) replied with this 15 years ago, 5 minutes later, 12 minutes after the original post[^][v]#236,981
@236,972 (Swashbuckler !!+SaaZSjSE)
I didn't know that about IMDB either.
It seems very unfair to her and I hope she gets a good settlement out of it.
Anonymous C replied with this 15 years ago, 15 minutes later, 27 minutes after the original post[^][v]#236,994
So, it sounds like she signed up and gave them the information? Or did they have to go and investigate further to get her age?
If she joined the site, she no doubt had to agree to terms in the process. I'm kind of eager to see how this will play out.
cccuuunnttt !nIGga.SL0w (OP) replied with this 15 years ago, 6 minutes later, 33 minutes after the original post[^][v]#236,998
@previous (C)
She thinks they found it through a records search using her credit card info: > The actress, who lives in Texas, believes details of her age were uncovered by doing record searches using her credit card information, and has asked the site to remove her age from her profile, but it has refused.
I didn't see anything in the tos that would forbid them from doing this. But I don't know much about consumer protections or privacy laws either.
I bet it's settled out of court.
(Edited 43 seconds later.)
Anonymous C replied with this 15 years ago, 6 minutes later, 40 minutes after the original post[^][v]#237,002
@previous (cccuuunnttt !nIGga.SL0w)
Most of the stuff in their privacy policy is about selling or giving data to third parties, which doesn't seem to be the case here. I'm not sure how much the damages section applies to the charges at hand.
> I bet it's settled out of court.
Meh. Probably. I'd love to see some court decisions ripping into "We ain't liable for shit" type customer agreements though.
Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 9 minutes later, 49 minutes after the original post[^][v]#237,005
My question is that if she believes it will hinder her professional career, isn't it almost always guaranteed that when a film role is selected for actors or actresses, their personal information is entered into contract anyway when they sign on to be paid? I assumed this would be a necessity for declaring their tax statements and such.
cccuuunnttt !nIGga.SL0w (OP) replied with this 15 years ago, 1 hour later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#237,035
> Most of the stuff in their privacy policy is about selling or giving data to third parties, which doesn't seem to be the case here. I'm not sure how much the damages section applies to the charges at hand.
My guess is they'll argue it's an invalid waiver when Amazon brings it up. The complaint does argue that the TOS purposely gives subscribers the impression that Amazon guarantees more privacy than it actually gives people. In which case the waiver of right to sue/collect damages might be unenforceable.
> I'd love to see some court decisions ripping into "We ain't liable for shit" type customer agreements though.
Yeah, boilerplate TOS waivers are bullshit. I'm curious to see what other cases say.
faggyfaggot !JS8Bu5jSBI joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 1 minute later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#237,036
i honestly just wanna know her name man.
dreamworks !AUIkTW/L46 joined in and replied with this 15 years ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#237,037
i agree with faggy faggot
cccuuunnttt !nIGga.SL0w (OP) replied with this 15 years ago, 9 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#237,042