[co-author: Nathaniel Cardinal]
A sharp contrast in the speed of obtaining appellate review is emerging between two key privacy statutes. While the U.S. Supreme Court is set to resolve a circuit split over the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), litigants grappling with the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA)—a statute one federal judge recently described as a “total mess”—still await interpretative guidance from even a single appellate court.
Some predicted that appellate review of CIPA might be coming soon, based on a motion for interlocutory appeal that was recently filed in Fregosa v. Mashable, Inc. However, on January 23, 2026, the district court denied the request. At issue in that case was the interpretation of CIPA’s “pen register” provision and whether it applied to website tracking technologies. Citing a handful of federal district courts that had adopted similar interpretations of CIPA, the court found there were no “substantial grounds for difference of opinion” to justify an appeal—despite the growing number of state courts that have adopted a conflicting interpretation of CIPA.
By contrast, trial courts in VPPA cases have seemed more open to allowing appellate review of ambiguities within the statute. The United States Supreme Court will hear Salazar v. Paramount Global to decide who qualifies as a “consumer” after federal circuits split 2-2 on the issue. At stake in Salazar is whether the VPPA applies narrowly to subscribers of “audiovisual materials” or broadly to all of a company’s subscribers.
With CIPA’s interpretation in flux and a landmark VPPA decision pending, the legal landscape for website tracking is volatile. Businesses must stay informed and proactively manage compliance risk. Follow for updates on these critical developments.
#PrivacyLaw #VPPA #CIPA #SCOTUS
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