News
Voice Actress' Lawsuit Against IMDb Heads to Court
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Former ADV Studios voice actress Junie Hoang's lawsuit against Amazon.com subsidiary IMDb.com for revealing her age moved forward in court on Friday. U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman agreed to allow some allegations to be presented by Hoang while striking down others.
Hoang originally filed the lawsuit in 2011 anonymously after IMDb posted her age based on credit card information from her subscription to the IMDbPro service. The Texas-based actress claims that she has experienced discrimination in Hollywood based on her true name (Huong Hoang) in the past and had chosen to conceal her name to prevent age discrimination. After signing up for a Pro account, IMDb used the information she provided for payment to locate personal information and update her corresponding profile page, thus revealing the age of the actress.
The judge agreed that this act constituted enough evidence for breach of contract to move past the preliminary stages of a trial. The allegations are based on IMDb's privacy policy that states the site will "carefully and sensibly" manage how account holder's information is shared.
However, the judge dismissed Hoang's claims of fraud and violation of the Washington Privacy Act committed by IMDb due to lack of supporting evidence. The judge also denied Hoang's claims to US$1 million in punitive damages.
Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history