Actress’s Privacy Lawsuit Challenges the Internet Movie Database

Junie Hoang is famous now, in a 15-minutes sort of way. She’s suing the Internet Movie Database and its parent, Amazon, for disclosing her age, 41, in an online profile.

Hoang’s lawsuit against IMDb and Amazon, filed last October in the United States District Court in Seattle, is promising to become a drawn-out battle that may expose more than the ire of an actress who claims her career was damaged by the revelation that she is older than she looks. As the suit proceeds, the discovery process could show how IMDb, a vast repository of movie and television information that has become Hollywood’s quasi-official record book, compiles the facts and figures by which people in the entertainment industry are publicly defined. If Hoang’s lawyers prevail, moreover, the case may provide a road map for others who believe they have been abused by the biggest data collector in the film industry.