Pruitt v. Comcast Cable Holdings

Comcast Cable Holdings, LLC (Comcast) (defendant) issued converter boxes to each of its cable subscribers. The converter boxes served several functions, including storing a subscriber’s pay-per-view purchase information. Each box stored information for up to 64 separate pay-per-view purchases. After 64 purchases, information about a new purchase would be written over the oldest stored purchase. Each box also contained a series of numbers known as a unit address. Comcast could match the unit-address numbers to information in its billing system to identify which subscriber currently had a particular box. If a subscriber turned in a converter box, Comcast did not delete any of the information stored in the box before issuing the box to another subscriber. A group of former and current Comcast cable subscribers (the subscribers) (plaintiffs) sued Comcast, alleging that Comcast had violated the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 (the act) by storing a subscriber’s personally identifiable information in the converter boxes and by storing it for longer than necessary. Specifically, the subscribers claimed that the unit address in a converter box could be used to identify a particular subscriber and that the stored pay-per-view information could then disclose that subscriber’s personal, private viewing habits. The district court found that the unit address in a converter box was not personally identifiable information and granted Comcast’s motion for summary judgment on the claims. The subscribers appealed to the Tenth Circuit.