Privacy Concerns
Although the data sets were constructed to preserve customer privacy, the Prize has been criticized by privacy advocates. In 2007 two researchers from the University of Texas were able to identify individual users by matching the data sets with film ratings on the Internet Movie Database.
On December 17, 2009, four Netflix users filed a class action lawsuit against Netflix, alleging that Netflix had violated U.S. fair trade laws and the Video Privacy Protection Act by releasing the datasets. There was public debate about privacy for research participants. On March 19, 2010, Netflix reached a settlement with the plaintiffs, after which they voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit.
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