YouTube Ordered to Turn Over All User Records to Viacom

[Zoneboy]

Link

YouTube users may have lost some of their privacy now that a judge has ordered its parent company Google to surrender every YouTube user's name, IP address and viewing history to Viacom. The order was issued on Wednesday at Viacom's request as part of the company's lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement, according to Wired.

Viacom alleged in its lawsuit that Google is responsible for allowing clips of copyright protected videos on the YouTube Web site. The company is asking for more than US$1 billion in damages.

The broadcaster is hoping that by getting its hands on YouTube's detailed records, it can show that copyright-infringing content is more popular than user-created content. Viacom plans to use the data it collects to show that Google has a higher level of liability for the copyright-protected content that appears on YouTube.

Google claims that it and YouTube are protected by a "safe harbor" law for online services because YouTube complies with copyright takedown notices.

For Viacom, however, that's not good enough. The broadcaster plans to sift through every personal record from YouTube, regardless of whether or not a user viewed Viacom owned content, and use that data as it sees fit in its case. The company also won a request that will force YouTube to provide a copy of every video it has ever pulled from the site even if those videos do not relate to Viacom.

The judge's ruling raised red flags for individuals and organizations concerned with privacy rights, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has already responded to say that the court order is a clear violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act and "threatens to expose deeply private information." Google also requested that the requests be denied to protect user privacy.


The court disagreed with Google and the public, and called Google's argument that turning over so much information would be a violation of user privacy "speculative."

While the orders look like a landslide win for Viacom and a big loss for user privacy, the court did deny at least a few of Viacom's requests. Motions to force Google to turn over YouTube's source code, it's own advertising database schema, and copies of all videos tagged as private were denied.

What Viacom does with the massive amounts of personal information Google is required to now surrender is one concern. Another is how that will data be protected once it changes hands. Considering Viacom's goals, the likelihood that all of the private user data it obtains from YouTube will stay private seems slim.

[Mr. Television]

Nobody has privacy anymore.

[waichingliu81]

another case of the internet being controlled and violated. how's about you tube concerntrate on removing videos that cause offence than those which serve to entertain us such as cartoons, tv shows, music vids for eg?

[catlover79]

BOO!!!

[oz615]

Sometime i really wonder how some of these Judges sleep at night knowing they did what thet did,

way to stick to the American people on the eve Independence Day.

[Dr. Thong]

Big Brother is just getting bigger and scarier. Why do these major corporations insist on going after their customers?

The corporations have taken over America. Independence Day...indeed.

[MrCleveland]

That's it! Viacom is evil and I will try to fight it!

If I ever become a screenplay writer (though I kind of am) I won't sell my script to Viacom, they are the Engulf+Devour corporation!

[Lee]

Originally Posted by waichingliu81

ticked: another case of the internet being controlled and violated. how's about you tube concerntrate on removing videos that cause offence than those which serve to entertain us such as cartoons, tv shows, music vids for eg?

Youtube is not at fault here in my opinion. They are just complying with
demands made by the big companies to take down copyrighted videos. You
should focus any anger toward these companies, not Google and Youtube.

[waichingliu81]

Originally Posted by Lee

Youtube is not at fault here in my opinion. They are just complying with
demands made by the big companies to take down copyrighted videos. You
should focus any anger toward these companies, not Google and Youtube.

but of course. it should be viacom we should be angry towards not you tube itself

[theshark8777]

Viacom is a douche.

[robyrob]

this is clearly a violation of people's rights - not only do they have your full viewing and search history, but they now have your IP address, email address, and personal info, all neatly catalogged and cross-referenced - they could use it to persue lawsuits against individuals, similar to the RIAA, or just send you a BILL for items you've already watched, or they could just sell your email addresses to spammers to try and make back any profits they think they might have been deprived of.

[Hollow]

oh please, they don't need millions of innocent users' personal information for anything. i think it was established long ago that viacom is a bully but this is unbelievable.

[dawsongirl]

Gee....cool old TV content, or some stupid ass punks acting like *******s on their own video?

If they pull all TV content off youtube, it will have no reason to exist in my world.

Viacom....up yours. You have quite enough money and power as it is. Where the hell is the judge who hates these corporate punks??

[PlayOn]

Originally Posted by MrCleveland

That's it! Viacom is evil and I will try to fight it!

If I ever become a screenplay writer (though I kind of am) I won't sell my script to Viacom, they are the Engulf+Devour corporation!

amen.
you don't have to worry selling Viacom your scripts. half of there shows are "reality" anyways.
viacom is satan.

[Nighthawk76]

Viacom sucks!