A federal judge has refused to toss out the suit filed by Texas actress Junie Hoang, who anonymously sued Amazon for revealing her true age on its subsidiary movie-info Web site IMDb.
Hoang, 41, a Texas A&M graduate who studied martial arts in Houston, sued the site for taking her age from information she had provided to become a subscriber and posting it on the public portion of the board.
A federal judge ruled last week that although she cannot sue of the grounds of fraud or violating the privacy act, she could proceed on the basis of a breach-of-contract claim.
Hoang has said in court documents that IMDb revealed “to the public that Plaintiff is many years older than she looks” and that actresses find it increasingly difficult to get hired in Hollywood as they reach the age of 40.
“Plaintiff’s core factual allegation is that Defendants used her personal information provided for payment ‘to cross-reference public records and other sources to obtain, among other things, Plaintiff’s legal name, age, date of birth, and other personal, confidential information, and making some of that unlawfully-obtained confidential information available to the public,'” the judge wrote, saying that is enough to allow the suit to go on.
Hoang’s claim is also viable under the state of Washington’s Consumer protection Act, the judge ruled.
Earlier in the case, the judge ordered Hoang to file her “Jane Doe” suit under her real name.
Follow Hair Balls News on Facebook and on Twitter @HairBallsNews.