“Defendants throttle streaming quality to consumers … in order to force their customers to access Hulu using through proprietary Hulu application rather than web browsers,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Defendants use their applications to collect personal information such as location data, email address and device serial numbers. This information is subsequently monetized and resold to advertisers, social networking sites, business partners and third-party companies,” it continues.
The lawsuit accuses Hulu and Disney, which aids Hulu’s marketing and subscription services, of false and deceptive marketing since Hulu advertises high-quality streaming “on all your favorite devices,” a claim the plaintiffs say does not match their experience.
The defendants also claim a “breach of express warranty,” stating that they wouldn’t have paid for Hulu’s premium subscription service if they knew it wouldn’t provide high-quality streaming on web browsers.
“On my PC the quality is horrible,” says one user quoted in the lawsuit. The user says they tried Hulu on different web browsers, checked to ensure that their 50 megabytes per second connection speed was working and capably downloaded and streamed high-definition videos from other streaming services on their PC without problems, but not Hulu.
While the suit represents Hulu users throughout the nation, subclasses in California and New York could possibly bring state legal claims to bear on the class action suit.
Newsweek reached out to Hulu for comment. This story will be updated with any response.
Although the case stems from user experiences in 2016 and 2018, Hulu and many streaming services have experienced increased rates of use during the 2020 coronavirus epidemic. The increased use results from more people viewing television at home since local bars, restaurants and other public places have been closed to slow COVID-19’s spread.
At the start of statewide shutdowns in late March, Hulu has said that binge-watching of three or more episodes per viewing session grew more than 25 percent compared to the two weeks prior.
An online study from the real-time market research company Invoke found that 75 percent of respondents watched more streaming content now than before the pandemic began.
Invoke’s finding is backed up by the global marketing firm Nielsen which showed that time on streaming platforms during the second half of March more than doubled from the same time period in 2019.
“Streaming is a big part of a lot of consumers’ lives right now. We have seen a tremendous growth in just how much streaming is going on over the last few weeks as COVID-19 becomes more prevalent across many parts of the country,” Scott N. Brown, head of TV product at Nielsen, told The Hollywood Reporter.
“The amount of time viewers are spending streaming more than doubled in the past year alone, and it’s nearly a quarter of the total time spent on TV among homes that have the ability to stream,” Brown added.
