Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, of the Central District of California, considered and denied defendant’s motion to dismiss, finding no preemption.
Background: Plaintiff alleged that Rumble embedded the Meta Pixel on its video platform and transmitted users’ identifying information and video-viewing activity to Facebook without consent. According to the complaint, whenever a user requested a video, the Meta Pixel sent the user’s Facebook-linked identifiers together with information about the video viewed. Plaintiff asserted a single claim under CIPA section 631(a).
Analysis: The court denied the motion to dismiss. It rejected Rumble’s argument that CIPA was preempted by the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, finding no clear congressional intent to displace California’s wiretapping statute. The court further held that the alleged disclosure of full-string URLs identifying specific videos plausibly constituted the contents of communications rather than mere record information. It also found the complaint adequately alleged interception in transit through embedded Meta Pixel code and, unlike the original complaint, now plausibly alleged that Facebook independently used the intercepted information for its own advertising purposes, supporting an inference that Meta acted as a third-party eavesdropper rather than merely as Rumble’s tool.
Rumble is correct that discovery may ultimately show that the Meta Pixel functioned solely as Rumble’s tool in this context — but that is a merits question, not a pleading defect. See, e.g., Yoon v. Lululemon USA, Inc., 549 F. Supp. 3d 1073, 1081 (C.D. Cal. 2021) (“The question thus becomes, in analogue terms: is Quantum Metric a tape recorder held by Lululemon, or is it an eavesdropper standing outside the door? This is a question of fact for a jury, best answered after discovery”); Garcia, 2023 WL 5736006, at *4 (“But the question of whether ASI is more similar to a tape recorder or an eavesdropper is a question of fact best resolved by a jury.”).
Significance: The decision illustrates how allegations that a tracking provider independently exploits collected data can help overcome the “party” exemption often raised in website-tracking cases. It also adds to the growing body of cases treating video-specific URLs and viewing activity as communication contents protected by CIPA.
Goldstein v. Rumble Inc., No. CV 25-06304-MWF (SKX), 2026 WL 1406766 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 24, 2026), motion to certify appeal granted sub nom. Mike Goldstein v. Rumble, Inc., No. CV 25-06304-MWF (SKX), 2026 WL 2808649 (C.D. Cal. June 25, 2026).
