04 July 2008
A federal court has ruled that Google must divulge the viewing history of all YouTube users. The ruling comes from the ongoing legal case with media giants Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.
Google has been ordered to release viewing logs, log-in IDs, IP addresses and video clip details - not only for US users but globally. This ruling has raised fears that the viewing histories of millions of YouTube users could be inadvertently exposed. Google was also instructed to disclose details of all videos that have been removed from the site.
The backlash from this ruling has stimulated a worldwide debate on the topic, with both Google and Viacom reassuring users that they are attempting to preserve their anonymity. Viacom stated that it would not be asking for any "personally identifiable information" of any user. This suggestion was refuted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who stated that the "the ruling was also potentially unlawful because the log data did contain personally identifiable data".
Google's senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera issued a worldwide statement, saying: "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 anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order."
Google did retain the right to YouTube users' private video history and indeed their search technology under the order. Viacom said it wanted the data to "compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos."
Viacom launched their case in March 2007 and since then over 160,000 clips of its media library have appeared on YouTube with viewings of more that 1.5 billion. Following the launch of legal action, YouTube took introduced a new filtering tool to ban copyrighted images from appearing on site. However, with the court case still at an early stage, it seems that there are plenty of twists and turns ahead for Viacom, Google and YouTube users.
Viacom wins first battle against Google
A federal court has ruled that Google must divulge the viewing history of all YouTube users. The ruling comes from the ongoing legal case with media giants Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement. Google has been ordered to release viewing logs, log-in IDs, IP addresses and video clip details - not only for US users but globally. This ruling has raised fears that the viewing histories of millions of YouTube users could be inadvertently exposed. Google was also instructed to disclose details of all videos that have been removed from the site.
The backlash from this ruling has stimulated a worldwide debate on the topic, with both Google and Viacom reassuring users that they are attempting to preserve their anonymity. Viacom stated that it would not be asking for any "personally identifiable information" of any user. This suggestion was refuted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who stated that the "the ruling was also potentially unlawful because the log data did contain personally identifiable data".
Google's senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera issued a worldwide statement, saying: "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 anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order."
Google did retain the right to YouTube users' private video history and indeed their search technology under the order. Viacom said it wanted the data to "compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos."
Viacom launched their case in March 2007 and since then over 160,000 clips of its media library have appeared on YouTube with viewings of more that 1.5 billion. Following the launch of legal action, YouTube took introduced a new filtering tool to ban copyrighted images from appearing on site. However, with the court case still at an early stage, it seems that there are plenty of twists and turns ahead for Viacom, Google and YouTube users.
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