Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday.
[...]Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users' privacy, the judge's ruling (.pdf) described that argument as "speculative" and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.
The judge also turned Google's own defense of its data retention policies -- that IP addresses of computers aren't personally revealing in and of themselves, against it to justify the log dump.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already reacted, calling the order a violation of the Video Privacy Protection act that "threatens to expose deeply private information."
The order also requires Google to turn over copies of all videos that it has taken down for any reason.
Webtapping refers to the practice of logging the IP addresses of users that access certain websites. Though it is allowed by the PATRIOT Act, it is considered by many to be at the very least a questionable practice, if not an all-out violation of civil liberties. [edit—WikiPedia] This blog discusses privacy and security matters in the era of Social Networking, Blogging, WiFi, hosted emails and files and the Patriot Act and the Great Firewall of China.
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User Histories to Viacom
Wired is reporting that:
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