A nearly quarter-century-old privacy law will keep Netflix from integrating with social-media titan Facebook in the U.S., at least for now.
The Netflix-Facebook integration, which is available to customers in Canada and Latin America, allows Netflix customers to share what they watch with friends on Facebook and vice-versa, making it “easier and more fun to find new television series and movies to watch," as Netflix says on its corporate blog.
Of course, the vast majority of the over-the-top provider’s 20+ million subscribers are in the U.S.; those customers won’t be able to participate because of a 1988 law that makes it illegal to disclose video sales and rental records. It stems from a case involving Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, whose video-rental records were given to a newspaper looking into his background. A bill has been introduced in Congress that would amend the Video Privacy Protection Act to allow for the type of sharing Netflix and Facebook want to provide their users.
Nonetheless, it’s at least a temporary stumbling block for a company that doesn’t need any more problems this year. Earlier this week, CEO Reed Hastings apologized for the way the company announced a 60 percent rate hike on its DVD+streaming business. Netflix’s decision to spin off its mail-in DVD business and rename it Qwikster also been greeted with a lot of negative reviews.
The company’s stock has taken a terrible beating since mid-July, when it briefly reached a $300-per-share milestone, trading Friday morning at just $130.
