Would Netflix's Facebook App be Illegal?

Reports on Tuesday are suggesting that a forgotten law from the 1980's could mean that Netflix's

mooted Facebook app would be illegal. According to

, the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) is blocking NFLX from creating an app, and lawmakers are currently discussing what can be done to change that. To some, the VPPA is a dinosaur law and it has no place in this open technology-savvy world. To others, it is more a sign of how things should be, or how they should have remained. Still, Netflix is lobbying Congress to change what it is calling an “ambiguous” and “confusing” law. We can thank a man called Robert Bork for the VPPA. Bork was the subject of an intense personal investigation while the subject of a failed Supreme Court nomination, and a freelance writer for the Washington City Paper paid a video store clerk to give him Bork's rental history. Though there was nothing on the list that would raises any violence – no porn or ultra-violence – the City Paper published the list. A few months later, Congress passed the VPPA, prohibiting a video service provider from disclosing its customers' personally identifiable information. Netflix's point is that the language, aimed at “pre-recorded video cassette tapes or similar audio visual equipment”, leaves a lot unclear regarding the present day technology. "It's ambiguous about whether it applies to us. We just don't know, and we'd rather be in compliance than risk stepping over the line," Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey told CNNMoney. Whether it is legal or not, Hulu has a Facebook app which users can opt in or out of. Again, how the VPPA applies to this is unclear. It has been a difficult year so far for Netflix. On March 14, Trefis published a research report stating that NFLX's proposal of partnering with a pay-TV company has been reportedly turned down by some of the big names in the U.S. pay-TV industry such as DirecTV

, Dish Network

and Comcast

. “This is no surprise at all and we wrote in our previous article that it is unlikely that these companies will partner with Netflix (see article Netflix Looks for Bundling Buddy Among Major Cable Co.'s). What we emphasized in that article was that Time Warner Cable could be the only potential partner for Netflix among the major cable companies, but we have yet to see any development between the two companies over the matter.”