Viacom: All your YouTube viewing data are belong to us

by Davey Winder

Thursday, 03 July 2008

Page 2 of 3 Describing Google's defence that, really rather obviously, handing over such data would inevitably invade the privacy of its users the judge said that this was merely speculative. Of course, Google does not come out of this without some stain to its character on the user privacy front. After all, we know now that every single time you watch a video clip on YouTube it logs your user ID, your IP address, the date and time you were watching and details of the clip itself - even if the video happens to be embedded within a site other than YouTube. While the judge took the view that Viacom had no claim on the YouTube source code nor the Google advertising schema, and quite frankly why it though it had is beyond me, his common sense flew out of the window when it came matters of user privacy. Indeed, Judge Stanton also ordered Google to hand over all copies of all videos ever taken down from YouTube. Not just the ones that violate Viacom copyright, mind you, but every single one ever taken down for any reason at all. What Judge Stanton appears to have overlooked is the protection offered to users under the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) which was passed by US Congress in order to protect the deeply personal nature of what video content people choose to view. This came about after a much publicised case involving a newspaper disclosing the video rental records of a Supreme Court nominee. It would appear that the court took the usage of the term 'video tape service providers' in the VPPA legislation literally, and did not consider streaming Internet video as the same thing. However, legal experts argue that the VPPA is not limited to the technology that was available at the time of its enactment, and even includes 'similar audio visual materials' in order to get around this limitation. What does the EFF have to say about all this, and will Google launch an appeal against the ruling? Read on to find out... CONTINUED << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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