No appeal from Google on YouTube data ruling

Davey Winder
Saturday, 05 July 2008 16:29

Business IT - Networking

Certainly Privacy International appears to think so if reports that it is to make a formal complaint about Google handing over the YouTube logs to data-protection officials from all 27 European Union nations on Monday are correct.

The EU 'Article 29' Data Protection Working Party has already concluded that companies such as Google must reduce the time that they hang on to user data in order to comply fully with EU privacy law. As the YouTube logs will contain information on European users, a ruling against them seems almost certain. Which could mean potential fines, although unlikely to be of the magnitude of those levied against Microsoft in recent rulings.

All of which makes the apparent decision by Google not to appeal the Viacom ruling, not to be seen to fight for the privacy of the people who use its services, very odd indeed.