YouTube - Viacom settlement sparks privacy fears

 

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Posted on 4 Jul 2008 at 12:15

Privacy activists have condemned a US court's decision to order Google to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom. Privacy activist group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) claimed the order "threatens to expose deeply private information".

Viacom, the owner of MTV Networks and Paramount studios, requested a database with usernames of YouTube viewers, what videos they watched, when, and users' computer addresses, as evidence in their £500 million copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube. According to the EFF, the order violates the Video Privacy Protection Act.

Both companies claimed they are looking to work out how to comply with the court order to share video data while ensuring personal information is not compromised. Viacom said it needs the data to demonstrate video piracy patterns, but claimed it had no interest in identifying individual users.

"Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any user," the company said in a statement.

"Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain ... will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against YouTube and Google (and) will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner."

According to Google's senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera, her client is looking to resolve the issue in such a way that Viacom's need for evidence is fulfilled, while "carving out some space for user privacy".

The Google attorney also called upon Viacom to allow YouTube to anonymise user data and redact rows of data containing usernames or unique IP addresses.

Interestingly, the Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1988 after a Supreme Court nominee's video rental habits were revealed.

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota