Business

Movie ‘likes’ coming soon

A privacy law written for the era of videocassette rentals is about to change, paving the way for movie buffs to share what they watch online.

The Video Privacy Protection Act — a relic from the days of VHS and Blockbuster — prevents movie rental histories from being made public.

It also hinders services such as Netflix when it comes to posting a user’s viewing list on sites like Facebook, where in these times of oversharing it seemed like movie tastes were the last bit of information still private.

That’s about to change. This week Congress passed a bill ready for President Obama’s signature that would do away with the old rules on video rental disclosures.

Netflix fought hard to change the privacy rules ever since Facebook overhauled its network last year, allowing for “frictionless” sharing.

For instance, with permission from users, music sites began posting to Facebook every time a song was played. Also, companies posted the games Facebook users were playing.

Basically, any action that could be shared was — except for Netflix. The company needed permission from users every time it posted that a user viewed a movie, instead of allowing a user to give blanket approval.

The new law allows just such approval with a few protections built in, like an easy way to turn off the sharing function.

Netflix has said that aside from giving users the ability to share their movie habits, Facebook integration could help expand its membership ranks, which stand at about 30 million subscribers.