Consumer Reports Defeats Suit Over Sale of Subscriber Lists

Consumer Reports Inc. defeated a lawsuit alleging it sold subscribers’ information to third parties without their consent in violation of the right-of-publicity laws of Alabama, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, and Washington, a federal court ruled.

James Wallen, Royce Lader, Rita Fahrner and the other plaintiffs alleged that Consumer Reports provided subscribers’ names, addresses, and the titles of publications they subscribed to data aggregators, and then sold the aggregated data to third parties for a “significant profit.”

The plaintiffs argued that the sale of this information to third parties violated the right of publicity laws in the seven states, but ...