US Court Rules That Google Must Divulge All Youtube Users' Browsing Habits yes, *every* user

[electriic ink 1]

As part of their battle with Google, a US court has ruled that Google must hand over the viewing habits of every user of YouTube to Viacom. This will include the log-in ID of users, IP addresses and video-clip details. Whilst the two companies involved are based in the USA, it is believed that details of users from all over the world will be divulged.

 

Considering that there are over 83 million videos on YouTube and about 500,000 users, I wish the person in charge of sifting through this information "good luck". Whilst some would call this one of the greatest invasions of privacy ever, the chance that this action could come back and haunt you (i.e. they see your illegal viewing habits and sue you) are a million-to-one as it's Google's fault for letting you host and view the material.

 

How do you feel about your details being handed over?

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7488009.stm

[moogie 0]

I'm not very happy about this at all. Handing over my personal information to a company that I have no contact with at all is completely out of line.Yes I can understand Viacom's concerns about copyright infringement and wanting to clamp down on that, but why do they need my personal information to do just that?And what are they going to do with my information once they have it?The onus should be on google to be responsible for copyright violations. Viacom is a private company and as such has no right to my information being divulged from another source.

Edited July 3, 2008 by moogie (see edit history)

[Saint_Michael 3]

I don't feel sorry one bit, people know the laws of uploading illegal music, disgusting videos, such as someone getting blown up. Heck there are videos about computer hacking as well, but of course the funny thing is though, that when they start throwing people into jail because of this the prisons will fill up quicker then a glass of water. So the government will be to blame for the millions spent in prisons and wasting peoples time in court because the serious crimes are being put aside because a music company wants its money for someone stealing their music and blah blah.Everyone is to blame and but it is hte users fault for doing these illegal activities and of course getting caught as well.

[Csshih 0]

Oh dear, there goes my illegal viewing of anime. Now, on to google video!Did the US court rule anything about that?

[electriic ink 1]

I don't feel sorry one bit, people know the laws of uploading illegal music, disgusting videos, such as someone getting blown up. Heck there are videos about computer hacking as well, but of course the funny thing is though, that when they start throwing people into jail because of this the prisons will fill up quicker then a glass of water. So the government will be to blame for the millions spent in prisons and wasting peoples time in court because the serious crimes are being put aside because a music company wants its money for someone stealing their music and blah blah.
Everyone is to blame and but it is hte users fault for doing these illegal activities and of course getting caught as well.

Obviously the viewers of the content or even those who uploaded it aren't going to be jailed. It's more that the log serves as evidence of how many copyrighted clips there are on YouTube and how many people are watching them, because, let's face it, YouTube's nothing without the copyrighted videos. They might, at the very most, prosecute the big law-breakers but they won't go any further - it's simply not economical to take all these people to court.

[adriantc 0]

I don't really understand why are such records so important? What are they going to do with them? Maybe some statistics on what people watch, but what is the purpose of having statistics on the way people watch some home videos? I think it has to do with advertisements, but I fail to see a connection. If they really don't know what to do with their money, I suggest they make a donation to me. ;)And no one is going to jail. As far as I know it's not illegal to record music from the radio for example and since the quality of the sound and video are so low it's not like people don't buy albums because of YouTube. Going further YouTube helps the industry since it offers something like low quality samples which could turn into more sales.

[truefusion 3]

I remember the BBC writing an article about chocolate, it was nothing important and it implied they had nothing better to do. This article is similar—it's nothing important and nothing to be worried about. I mean, what does having my IP address, my user id and my video information do to me? Youtube and Google already have that, what's another company? I have nothing to hide or be afraid of. People viewing the content can't be blamed for the content, except maybe if they've downloaded such content (see Firefox extentions). The only people that should be worried are those committing acts against already established laws, however little it may be. Are you one of those people that have uploaded illegal content, electriic ink?

[.:Piper_2051:. 0]

I do beleive that legally, the owners/operators of Y"youTube" must request permision from the members individually to release such information. It IS an invasion of privacy, blatant at that, and the government is merely trying to remove more civil liberties from citizens. If google released my information to the US government, I WOULD sue for insane amounts of money. I am not a US citizen and therefore am not subject to american law unless I am on US soil, which I am not, nor have I been recently.

[rvalkass 5]

I do beleive that legally, the owners/operators of Y"youTube" must request permision from the members individually to release such information. It IS an invasion of privacy, blatant at that, and the government is merely trying to remove more civil liberties from citizens. If google released my information to the US government, I WOULD sue for insane amounts of money. I am not a US citizen and therefore am not subject to american law unless I am on US soil, which I am not, nor have I been recently.

Wrong. You agree to their privacy policy, which states:

 

We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, ( enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, © detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.

Obviously you have read it, as you ticked the box when you created your account saying that you had read it and agreed to it, so you should be aware of that fact. I know no-one (apart from me ) actually reads these policies, but sometimes it can be useful.

 

Anyway, Google are approaching Viacom to find out exactly why they want user identifiable data, as it serves no purpose. Their aim is to prove that YouTube is mainly used for viewing copyrighted material, and that it is much more popular than original material, not to work out who is viewing what.

[Forbez 0]

Way more then 500,000 users buddy. YouTube is freaking huge and has tons of members. But the U.S. government has done this before, last time they wanted to information from google search engine. google says no, and always will, say no.

[Sica-GURU 0]

I don't care... who knows my IP? or who's so interested in what I'm watching..?and what do they do with dynamic ip users...whatever, this thing is not so new..they already monitor traffic by countries, why they need this?

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

Honest that makes me happy yet upset in a lot of ways. Happy because the goverment can see what we do, good or bad.and upset because you never know where all that info may go. For all we know they could see all the E mail address to some spam co, and our E mail boxes will become full of junk. All I can say is this. THATS BIG BROTHER FOR YA

[midnightvamp 1]

I just find it funny that a company such as Google would buy a site that is based on copyrite infringement to begin with. They knew why it was popular, they knew what people went there to view... and they still wanted it knowing that it was a law suit waiting to happen. Why? Because it's worth a heck of a lot. I know they try to take down things are they are flagged by the companies for being not allowed, but they will never get rid of all the illegal content unless they have people sitting there and actively monitoring every video that goes up. And that will never happen, because it would ruin what YouTube has become.I just want to know what Viacom is planning to do with all the information. Because quite frankly, it seems silly to go after a lot of little people watching the videos (who are mostly young people that aren't made of money anyway), so they will be wasting a lot of money on court cases when there isn't that many people out there that will be able to afford the costs themselves. I know why they don't fully go after Google - because they've got so much money and could drag out a court case until the end of time.Still, people are responsible for what they watch, so it's up to them to watch it or not, but Google is also responsible for providing the content in the first place. Though if it's not on YouTube that people watch this stuff, it will just be somewhere else... and most times now it's elsewhere anyway, because of YouTube's limited time allowed for videos.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

It bothers me that they would even attempt to get that information...In terms of who viewed various files and all, they can get that information *without* going through and taking our personal information.To me this is yet another step in the "transparency" and loss of privacy that we once had. They are taking one step at a time and once they get that one step they will take another, and another, and another.I really hope that it does not go through. Do I have anything to hide? Not really. Will anything happen to me? I haven't uploaded videos or anything so no. The point doesn't change that this will only lead to less privacy in the future though.