As if it doesn’t have enough to worry about, Ubisoft is now facing a potential class action lawsuit alleging it illegally shared personally identifiable information about Ubisoft Store users with Meta.
The Ubisoft Store isn’t anywhere near the behemoth of Steam, but it’s there and people use it. Likewise, the game subscription service Ubisoft+ is no Game Pass but the fact of its continued existence means some number of people are paying monthly fees to access it. Both require the usual array of information, including your name, address, and credit card information—very typical stuff.
The problem, according to the lawsuit (available in full from CourtListener), is that Ubisoft makes use of Pixel, which Meta describes as “a piece of code on your website that can help you better understand the effectiveness of your advertising and the actions people take on your site, like visiting a page or adding an item to their cart.” Simply put, anything you do on the Ubisoft website while you’re logged into Facebook is seen and tracked for use in “retargeting,” which is essentially the process of convincing people who are buying your stuff to buy more of your stuff.
Vaguely dystopian, sure, but that’s just business as usual in this day and age: Anyone who thinks their data isn’t being picked over with a fine tooth comb and fed into the gaping maw of the Capitalism Machine isn’t paying attention. But this particular implementation of consumer surveillance is unlawful, according to the lawsuit, because it exposes personally identifiable information “to any person of ordinary technical skill who received that data,” and does so without disclosing in advance that it’s happening.
This, the suit states, is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, the Federal Wiretap Act, and the California Invasion of Privacy Act, and for that plaintiffs Trevor Lakes and Alex Rajjoub—both of whom purchased multiple games from the Ubisoft Store—”individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated” are seeking financial damages and an order compelling Ubisoft to either get rid of Pixel or obtain consent from its user to share their data—another check-box for us to blast through, I suppose.
There’s still a good way to go before anything comes of it—the suit is still awaiting class action certification, for one thing—but given Ubisoft’s current struggles, I’m sure it’s not welcome news. Following “softer than expected” sales of Star Wars Outlaws and a last-minute delay of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the company is pulling out all the stops—including a full-scale return to Steam—to right its ship and get its share price pointed in a vaguely upward direction again. Ubisoft’s founding Guillemot family is also reportedly having discussions with major investor Tencent that could see the company taken private.
Ubisoft declined to comment on the lawsuit.
