Google Must Divulge YouTube Viewers' Identities
Posted on: Thursday, 3 July 2008, 16:00 CDT
A U.S. court has ruled that google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube.
A "set-back to privacy rights" is what digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling.
Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement is what has sparked the ruling.
Viacom will be handed a viewing log which contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.
It is thought the ruling will apply to YouTube users and their viewing habits everywhere, even though the legal battle between the two firms is being contested in the U.S.
Owner of MTV and Paramount Pictures, Viacom has alleged that YouTube is guilty of massive copyright infringement.
Viacom said it had identified about 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programs on the website when it initiated legal action in March 2007.
After the the billion-dollar lawsuit, YouTube introduced filtering tools in an effort to prevent copyright materials from appearing on the site.
Viacom requested that Google be forced to hand over the source code of YouTube, saying it was a "trade secret" that should not be disclosed. The U.S. court declined their request, but granted Viacom's demand for viewing history of the site.
Google's senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera said in a statement, "We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's over-reaching demand for viewing history.
"We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymize the logs before producing them under the court's order."
The ruling will see the viewing habits of millions of YouTube users given to Viacom, totaling more than 12 terabytes of data.
Viacom said it wanted the data to "compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos."
Simon Davies, leading privacy expert, told BBC News that the privacy of millions of YouTube users was being threatened.
He said, "The chickens have come home to roost for Google.
"Their arrogance and refusal to listen to friendly advice has resulted in the privacy of tens of millions being placed under threat."
Privacy campaigners had warned Google for years that IP addresses were personally identifiable information.
Google pledged last year to anonymize IP addresses for search information but it has said nothing about YouTube data.
"Governments and organizations are realizing that companies like Google have a warehouse full of data. And while that data is stored it is under threat of being used and putting privacy in danger," said Davies.
The EFF said, "The court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube.
"We urge Viacom to back off this overboard request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users."
Google is to also disclose to Viacom the details of all videos that have been removed from the site for any reason.
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Source: redOrbit staff and wire reports
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User Comments (1)
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Posted by Mr Mac on 07/04/2008, 21:45 I'm not a lawyer, but I can't image that an appeals court would uphold such a broad and vague ruling. If these were Credit Card account numbers and they were searching for a similarly tiny fraction of people who bought illegal items on-line, would that same court demand the release of ALL THE ACCOUNTS? I think not. It's absurd. Hidden at the end of the article is the notice that Goggle has already provided information on the copyrighted videos. This fishing at it's finest! |
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