Washington DC - The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on how a 1988 privacy law concerning video rental companies should apply to consumer data in the digital age, a debate which has divided lower courts.

The law at issue, the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), was passed by Congress after a list of videos rented by Robert Bork – president Ronald Reagan's ultimately failed nominee to be a Supreme Court justice – was leaked to media during his contentious Senate confirmation process.

The list of videos produced no scandalous revelations but raised serious privacy concerns.

Known as the "Bork bill," the law specifically protects against the unauthorized sharing of "personally identifiable information" for a "consumer" of videotape service providers.

In the case before the Supreme Court, Michael Salazar, a California man who subscribed to a free sports newsletter, argued that his data was given without his authorization to Facebook for the purpose of serving him targeted advertisements.

Lawyers for media giant Paramount, which owns the site behind the newsletter, argued on Wednesday that the plaintiff should not be considered a "consumer" under the law, as he had not actually purchased any video content, and that Congress only intended for the law to apply to video rental services, not websites hosting videos broadly.

Salazar's lawyer countered that the VPPA was not "technology specific" and that the Supreme Court's ruling was necessary to settle debate over the law's modern application.

A district and appellate court both dismissed Salazar's case, but the conservative-dominated Supreme Court decided to hear his appeal as lower panels have issued differing opinions on the matter.

Several of the six conservative justices on the nine-member panel appeared to have reservations about applying the 1988 law to modern websites.

"Isn't there a concern about repurposing a statute that was really about public disclosure of what individuals viewed into a statute that regulates data sharing for targeted advertising on the internet?" asked conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

"Those are very different things," he said.

Elena Kagan, one of three liberal justices, suggested that websites could simply get consent from users to avoid running afoul of the law.

"Going forward, you have two very simple solutions. One is to get consent. Easy enough – people do it every day. The other is to stop selling people's private information. Take your pick," she said.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule before its current session ends in late June.