Google forced to hand over records of YouTube users
A ruling by a US court has ordered Google, who owns YouTube, to hand over details of what video’s are being watched, IP addresses and usernames, to Viacom which want the information to prove that the site is showing thousands of television and other media clips which break copyright laws.
Google have said they will comply fully the judgment would affect “our global log”. They do not plan to appeal against the ruling, said a Google spokesman.
Privacy groups have, however, said the ruling as a dangerous precedent that could lead to worldwide breaches of internet privacy.
The internet rights group, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the court order will allow Viacom to see what every user is watching on YouTube. The group said “We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users”.
Viacom, the owners of several US television networks including MTV and Nickelodeon, launched the lawsuit in March 2007 costing an alleged $1bn. They claimed that almost 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes are available on YouTube. They also claim these clips have been viewed 1.5 billion times.
Lawyer for Viacom say they need the user information to prove that copyright infringing material is more popular than video’s and clips put up by user’s themselves on YouTube.
Google have argued that user data could not be handed over because of privacy issues.
Google hopes that requests to Viacom that it will respect user’s privacy.
Catherine Lacavera, Google’s senior litigation counsel said “We are pleased the court put some limits on discovery, including refusing to allow Viacom to access users’ private videos and our search technology. We are disappointed the court granted Viacom’s overreaching 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.”
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