Google trying to take privacy seriouslyCONTENTS:
IRELAND'S Data Commissioner has criticised a court order forcing YouTube to hand over any information it has about its users as a breach of privacy and the sign of a Big Brother internet culture. A U.S. court ruled this week that internet search engine Google must reveal the viewing habits of every person who has ever used the YouTube video website, after the initial demand for the information from Viacom, a company which owns copyright to many films and TV programmes featured on YouTube. Viacom plans to use the information as its base for a billion-dollar lawsuit against Google based on alleged copyright infringement on YouTube, which is owned by Google. U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton has backed Viacom's claims that Google acts as a willing accomplice to internet users who breach the copyright laws -- saying that the log in names of YouTube users and internet protocol (IP) addresses identifying which computers they used for viewing videos must now be made available. [1] Viacom, owner of Comedy Central and MTV television networks, wants the information to find out if YouTube viewers watch copyrighted shows in an effort to bolster its $1-billion infringement lawsuit against Google. The ruling may lead some web surfers to avoid using Google, which makes money based on traffic to and from its websites. Google, owner of the most-used Internet search engine, has resisted attempts to get at its troves of user data. In 2006, the company fought a U.S. subpoena for months as it sought to assure users that their search records weren't easily accessible. Google founder Sergey Brin said it's the Mountain View, California-based company's "obligation" to protect users' privacy. "We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymize the logs before producing them under the court's order," Catherine Lacavera, Google's senior litigation counsel, said in a statement.[2] Viacom had filed a lawsuit against Youtube and Google looking for more than $1 billion in damages because of alleged copyright violations on YouTube. Besides this user data, Viacom also sought access to Google's source code for its web and video search, as well as for its 'Video ID' programme. The judge, however, denied access to the code, because, "considered against its value and secrecy, plaintiffs have not made a sufficient showing of need for its disclosure." It's interesting that Google's trade secrets are worth protecting while the privacy of users is not. "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," says EFF.[3] The judge's order, made public late Wednesday, renewed concerns among privacy advocates that Internet companies like Google are collecting unprecedented amounts of private information that could be misused or fall unexpectedly into the hands of third parties. "These very large databases of transactional information become honey pots for law enforcement or for litigants," said Chris Hoofnagle, a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. For every video on YouTube, the judge required Google to turn over to Viacom the login name of every user who watched it and the address of their computer, known as an IP, or Internet protocol address. Both companies have argued that IP addresses alone cannot be used to unmask the identities of individuals with certainty. In many cases, technology experts and others have been able to link IP addresses to individuals using other records of their online activities. The amount of data covered by the order is staggering, as it includes every video watched on YouTube since its founding in 2005.[4] Google had objected to Viacom's request for the data, arguing that it would violate users' privacy. The Mountain View, Calif. -based company drew fire from privacy groups because it has written elsewhere, when defending its long-term collection of data on users' web surfing habits, that internet addresses aren't "personally identifiable information." In his written order, which covered a number of requests for evidence, Stanton cited a Feb. 22 posting to Google's official blog saying that in most cases, an internet Protocol address "without additional information" - typically from an internet service provider - can't identify an individual. That's not always true, though, and people assuming that their behavior will remain private sometimes use their legal names as log-on handles.[5] Viacom Inc. wants YouTube's logs to help determine if unauthorized material makes up a major share of what gets watched there. The media giant, which owns the rights to such shows as "The Colbert Report" and "South Park," is suing YouTube and corporate parent Google Inc. for copyright infringement. Viacom General Counsel Michael Fricklas pledged "unequivocally" Thursday not to use the data to learn the real names of YouTube users in order to sue them for uploading unauthorized clips, as the recording industry has done to people who illegally shared music online. The New York-based company said a protective order dictated that only its outside lawyers and experts could access the raw data, and that it could be used solely to make the case against Google.[5] Google, which owns YouTube, has just been ordered to hand over the details of 100 million people who logged on to the video site, many of whom are British citizens. Google is currently locked in battle with the communications company Viacom, which claims that millions of hours of unauthorised clips are watched on YouTube, so infringing its copyright and depriving it of valuable income. The details it wants include users' names, email addresses and details of the clips they viewed. My anxieties are probably not shared by the younger generation who are the prime users of sites such as YouTube. For them, this is the obvious way to conduct their lives.[6] With two big exceptions. They want to deliver the records not including IP addresses and usernames. Viacom made its request for YouTube'''s logbook as part of a $1bn lawsuit that the content producer first filed in early 2007. The reason for the latest information request, granted by Judge Louis Stanton this past Tuesday, is that it wishes to '''demonstrate video piracy patterns''' on the video site. The information Viacom seeks of course involves user data in its original form, but the company said in a statement in response to concerns voiced by privacy advocates that it '''has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any user.'''[7] New York: Dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a $1b copyright-infringement lawsuit against online video-sharing website YouTube has ordered the site to disclose who watches which video clips and when. U.S. district judge Louis L Stanton authorized full access to the website logs after Viacom Inc and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.[8] The decision is the latest twist in a long court battle between the companies over claims that Google encourages copyright infringement on the video sharing website. Judge Louis Stanton, who is presiding over the $US1 billion ($1.04 billion) lawsuit, said the data handover was required for Viacom to build its case.[9] Viacom charged Google, which acquired YouTube in 2006, of acting as a voluntary accomplice to Internet users who posted clips of Viacom's copyrighted television programs on the popular video-sharing website. Judge Stanton backed Viacom's request for information on which YouTube users watch which videos on the website in order to support its case in a billion-dollar copyright-violation lawsuit against Google.[10] Google Inc., owner of the YouTube video-sharing website, may be exposed to heightened privacy complaints from Internet users after a U.S. judge ordered it to give Viacom Inc. a database about online viewers. Google was ordered to turn over records of videos viewed on YouTube, the login name of viewers and their computer's Internet address. Google already faces scrutiny over its storage of user data in the U.S. and Europe.[2] The unexpected aspect of the case was that the judge decided to force Google to hand over data which includes the user names and web addresses of anyone who has logged in to watch clips on the site. There may be a legal challenge to the judgment, as many insiders are already questioning whether this is a breach of privacy law, both in the U.S. and the EU. Still, it is unlikely that internet service providers will now have to divulge the details of individual users, unless they have actually posted clips belonging to Viacom.[11] These logs will include the login names and IP addresses of the users. Google are now asking Viacom if they can anonymize the logs before turning them over; Viacom hasn't responded yet. This privacy nightmare could have been greatly reduced if Google had anonymized the data in advance. Google's privacy policy states that they keep personally identifiable information for 18 months. There is no real reason to do so; Google can achieve everything they need even if they anonymize their search logs after just one month, and it's time users told them to do so."[12] Lawyers for Google Inc., which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data -- corresponding to the text of roughly 12 million books -- would be expensive, time-consuming and a threat to users' privacy. Stanton further rejected a demand from the plaintiffs for Google to reveal the source code -- the technical secret sauce -- powering its market-leading search engine, saying there's no evidence Google manipulated its search algorithms to treat copyright-infringing videos differently. "Google need not disclose its search code to Viacom, but its YouTube subsidiary must disclose a database listing who watched what video, when, and from where," Judge Stanton ordered Tuesday.[10] "Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain. will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against YouTube and Google (and) will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner." Google senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera said her company was looking to resolve the issue quickly in a way that balanced Viacom and other plaintiffs' need for evidence in the case while "carving out some space for user privacy." Lacavera said her company was pleased the court's decision had put limits on evidence discovery, including refusing to allow Viacom access to YouTube's search technology or to users' private videos on the site.[13] Privacy activists from the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a blog post the order "threatens to expose deeply private information" and violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 federal law passed after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental habits were revealed. Representatives of both companies said they were looking to work out how to comply with the court order to share video data while ensuring personally identifiable information is secure. Viacom responded in a statement that it needs the data to demonstrate video piracy patterns that are the heart of its case against YouTube. It sought to diffuse privacy fears, saying it had no interest in identifying individual users.[13] The internet is not free I used to teach a course to staff at King's College London on copyright law, and one of the main pieces of advice I gave was that contrary to popular belief, content on the internet is not free. You can access certain information online, but this does not mean that is legal to upload or download it, as the case may be. It therefore came as no surprise that a U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of Viacom's demands to see who has been uploading their video content on YouTube.[11] Viacom has said in a statement that they have no plans on identifying individual users and just want to show video piracy patterns in the court case against YouTube. Notice how they say they have no plans. The do not say they will not use. This way if they want to use it in the future they can. They will be the day after they get the info trust me. I do not know why the Judge wants such detailed information. In this age everyone knows about piracy and how bad it is. What they seem to be ignorant about is the fact that you cannot stop it. It will happen and has been happening for ages.[14] "Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against YouTube and Google (and) will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner." Maybe it's time that all ISPs institute a "surf safe" policy. i.e. No logs of any kind are kept and IP's are not recorded on any user.[14] The reality is though that in most cases, an IP address without additional information cannot." Google can't play it both ways. Either our IP addresses and user data ARE private (in which case we should have a LOT more protection from our Moutain-View-based Big Brother) or they aren't. You can't say that they aren't protected when it comes to selling targeted advertising, and then claim it's private information when getting sued for copyright infringement on YouTube. Google needs to have a consistent policy when it comes to privacy and simply adding a link to a policy on their entry page doesn't cut it.[15] One thing keeps coming back when you look at it: the precedent cited in the decision was Google's own virtual flapping lips. Google, you see, claims that they shouldn't have to turn over 12TB of data about who watched YouTube videos because user data, including IPs, is private user data. "the IP addresses recorded by every website on the planet without additional information should not be considered personal data, because these websites usually cannot identify the human beings behind these number strings."[15] Turning down the privacy concerns, a federal judge presiding over a billion dollar copyright infringement against Web'''s largest video sharing website and also the world's third-most-visited site YouTube, has ruled that Google must reveal all the details about the logging pattern of each and every user who has ever viewed a video on Google-owned YouTube.[16] Disclosure of the details of YouTube users will help Viacom to find out the extent of the illegal content on the site, and may form the basis for actions against individual infringers. It is unlikely mere viewers will be sued, as organizations that police copyright have generally only taken legal action against people who download or share content, and counterfeiters making money from it. We urge Viacom to back off (from) this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users."" It is time that YouTube and other file-sharing services operated more responsibly. The well-meaning users who upload their favorite clips, or make parodies of videos which are owned by big media companies may feel they are doing nothing wrong.[11] YouTube, which was founded in California in 2005, was bought by Google just a year later for $US1.65 billion and has since become the biggest video site on the web. Its videos are watched more than 2.5 billion times each month. The site is used by a number of broadcasters as an outlet for their videos and clips - but some rivals claim it is a hotbed of piracy and encourages people to upload copyrighted television shows. Although Google has brought in systems to help with the removal of illegal material, Viacom argued that it does not go far enough and launched its court action in March last year.[9] A billion-dollar court clash between old- and new-media giants took on unexpected privacy ramifications this week when a federal judge ordered YouTube to hand over the log-on names and internet addresses of every person who has viewed material on the web's top video site encompassing tens of millions of people.[5] The ruling, filed late Wednesday by Judge Louis Stanton of U.S. District Court in New York, shocked privacy advocates. They fear a broader effect from Stanton's finding that so-called internet Protocol addresses - the unique numbers assigned to each computer or device connected to the internet - need not be strictly protected because they aren't tied publicly to individual names. "It's a very important privacy moment," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It will remind folks that companies like Google are sitting on top of a lot of personal information that they can't always control."[5] Search engine giant Google has been ordered by a U.S. based court to provide data related to video-viewing habits of YouTube users to Viacom. This ruling has been criticized by privacy groups.[17] The court's decision also means that Viacom has succeeded in getting hold of the same information that the American Government has failed to access in the past. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice asked Google to reveal information on millions of web searches conducted on its website, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into illegal activity online, but Google successfully argued that such a move would invade users' privacy and expose commercially sensitive information.[9] Google has yet to turn a profit on the $1.65 billion it paid in 2006 to buy YouTube, more than 100 times the video- sharing website's annual revenue. "Google is in a tough spot, they must comply with the court order but there's a lot at stake in doing so," said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence in San Francisco. "If Google fights for its users' privacy it could be seen as a champion of privacy."[2] The ruling which demands Google to hand over the YouTube access logs, which are to show the actual extent of copyright infringement going on the popular site, has sparked outrage from privacy groups, which are now questioning both the court order and Google's practice of retaining such sensitive data for a long time or permanently.[18] It is unfortunate that we have been compelled to go to court to protect Viacom's rights and the rights of the artists who work with and depend on us. YouTube and Google have put us in this position by continuing to defend their illegal and irresponsible conduct and profiting from copyright infringement, when they could be implementing the safe and legal user generated content experience they promise.[19] 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".[20] In May, YouTube owner Google Inc. said that Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against the company is a threat to Internet communications. Google expressed its concern that such a lawsuit could be considered a direct threat to freedom on the internet. Google's lawyers are very confident about the defense they managed to build and are ready to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.[18] Viacom, the owners of several U.S. 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.[20] Well, dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a billion dollar copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the company to disclose who watches which video clips and when. The judge authorized full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom and other copyright holders argued that they needed the info to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.[21] Google has offered to cover the cost for a one year subscription to a credit monitoring service. On top of this problem, Google was ordered by a judge to hand over terabytes of YouTube logs to Viacom in the lawsuit against Google. Even though this is clearly something that affects the privacy of anyone that has ever used YouTube, it gets worse.[22] San Francisco -- Rejecting privacy concerns, a federal judge has ordered Google to disclose to Viacom the video-viewing habits of everyone who has ever used YouTube in a decision that triggered an outcry on Thursday from Internet giant and privacy advocates in the midst of a legal showdown over video piracy.[10] As part of the lawsuit, Viacom asked for an surprising array of information: the source code for the search functions that power Google and YouTube, the source code for YouTube's new " Video ID " program, a complete set of every video ever removed from the site, databases containing information on every video ever hosted at YouTube, and a copy of every private video.[10] Adobe to make searching easier on Flash sitesNEW YORK (AP) _ Internet users will now have an easier time finding sites that rely heavily on the popular Flash video format. Adobe Systems Inc., the format's developer, has released a customized version of its Flash Player software that allows Google Inc.' s search engine and others to see the elements of Web pages embedded with Flash content the same way a human would. Case dropped against parents who put baby on eBayMEMMINGEN, Germany (AP) _ A baby boy removed from his parents' custody after they offered to sell him on eBay for just a euro _ $1.59 _ as a joke is back at home, a prosecutor said Thursday. "The child has been returned to his parents," prosecutor Johannes Kreuzpointer told The Associated Press. Report: Microsoft seeks help for another Yahoo bidSAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Unable to strike a deal on its own, Microsoft Corp. reportedly is hoping to snap up Yahoo's online search operations with the help of News Corp. and Time Warner Inc. The latest twist in Microsoft's convoluted courtship caused Yahoo's shares to rise more than 3 percent in Wednesday's sinking stock market, even though the chances of a deal getting done still seemed remote.[23] The extent of the demand is quite extraordinary. The data Viacom has asked for stretches back a few years''' time, and seeing that the video host now serves user requests for billions of clips every month, Google'''s compliance on the matter would no doubt toss this case firmly into the realm of very high-profile ligitation.[7] Viacom is claiming (pdf) users put up pirated video clips on YouTube ""by the thousands"". Google, which paid $1.6 bn to acquire YouTube in 2006, is likely to be hit by a massive bill if they lose the case, and the value of YouTube will be substantially reduced.[11] Viacom is seeking at least $1 billion in damages from Google, saying YouTube has built a business by using the internet to '''willfully infringe''' copyrights on Viacom shows, which include Comedy Central'''s '''The daily show with Jon Stewart ''' and Nickelodeon'''s '''SpongeBob SquarePants''' cartoon. Together, the plaintiffs are trying to prove that YouTube has known of copyright infringement and can do more to stop it, a finding that could dissolve the immunity protections that service providers have when they merely host content submitted by their users.[8] YouTube still isn't a hugely profitable business. Google needs to have as few barriers as possible to grow with this particular property. Otherwise, if Viacom gets a solid edge on this matter, things won't look so rosy for the average Web user, who, let's face it, has consumed quite a bit of material that technically infringes on copyright law as it stands today.[7] The order raised concerns among YouTube users and privacy advocates that the video-viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. Google and Viacom said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of the site's visitors.[4] Civil liberties campaigners fear the ruling could set a precedent for the level of privacy afforded to people using the internet, and that internet companies could now be sued in order to get hold of sensitive personal data. "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."[9] Viacom also said that the information would be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside lawyers, who will use it solely to press Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit against Google.[4] The access logs will be analyzed by outside counsel and experts. "Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any user," Viacom said, reassuring that the data will be handled by both companies in a highly confidential manner. Google wants to process the access logs and "anonymize" them, removing private information such as usernames and IP addresses.[18] Viacom attorneys offered to provide Google hard drives to store the 12 terabytes of data. While the logs will be sanitized to protect real names and email addresses, they will still include the time a video is played, the login id and the IP address.[24] An IP address can reveal what geographic area you're connecting from, or which Internet service provider you're using.''' Therefore, while user names may not be an official pursuit for Viacom, YouTube may have to capitulate to the data request with IP records included.[7] To refer to the quote above stating that Viacom '''will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information,''' it is perhaps arguable that computer IP addresses don'''t technically fall under that designation. YouTube wrote in a blog post noting this fact, saying very plainly that '''IP addresses identify a computer, not the person using it. It's not possible to determine your identity solely based on your IP address.[7] IP addresses can help to narrow down sources of piracy, if not completely. If nothing else, having such information can simply give Viacom the ability to piece together a stronger argument against YouTube. Much of this case hinges on how many specifics the plaintiff can rack up against the defendant.[7] I don't support many of Google's privacy policies, but in this case, I DO NOT think Google is "playing it both ways". I do believe that IP addresses on their own may not identify people, and hence as long as it is being used in isolation (for say, studying load patterns) there is no breach of privacy. In conjunction with other information like videos viewed and usernames, it poses a huge privacy risk; and this is precisely what Google is pointing out.[15] Attached to each entry is each viewer'''s login ID and the Internet Protocol,or IP,address for viewer'''s computer. Stanton ruled this week that the plaintiffs had a legitimate need for the information and that the privacy concerns are speculative. Stanton rejected a request from the plaintiffs for Google to disclose the source code ''' the technical secret sauce ''' powering its market-leading search engine, saying there'''s no evidence Google manipulated its search algorithms to treat copyrightinfringing videos differently.[8] Stanton gave a significant order in favor of Google to keep the source code restricted from the claimants maintaining that no evidence could be found that Google manipulated the way search engine works. The effort of all the claimants is to prove that YouTube was well aware of its copyright infringement.[16] In Google's defense, they may have legitimate use for these records. Viewing history is clearly important if they want to offer better viewing suggestions to YouTube users. I also wonder if they include this data in their formula for presenting personalised Google search results. I'm sure it would be possible for them to get by with only a month or two of records, but consider why it is that Google is so successful as a search engine. They go out of their way to use every source of data they can to optimize their search results. They're not going to just toss out a valuable source of information like this if they can help it.[12] "The information that is produced by Google is going to be limited to outside advisers who can use it solely for the purpose of enforcing our rights against YouTube and Google," Fricklas said. In a letter sent Thursday, Google's lawyers pressed their counterparts at Viacom to accept more limited data.[4] There is a more important principle at stake. Most copyright owners make very small amounts from their work, and they should be entitled to prevent low quality copies from being distributed on YouTube if they wish. Copyright owners have the right to object to illegal file-sharing, and downloading of their content. The result of this court action is that YouTube will need to police the material that people upload. They will also need to set up a system of royalties to pay content owners and authors for the rights to use their work. This will reduce the value of the YouTube brand, and force them to share their profits on a more equitable basis, instead of just enriching Google.[11] All parties need to work out the details of the transfer, and while the basic statements delivered by Viacom and YouTube appear on the whole to be in agreement in keeping specific user data removed from the court battle, there'''s at least one particularity that may be contentious.[7] Which certainly won'''t make privacy hawks happy. Is this a bad omen for the video site, its parent company, or the users? If some past piracy-based court rulings are anything to go by, I imagine YouTube and its users are relatively safe. This fight could prove hugely messy for all.[7] "We are delighted the court put some limits on discovery, including refusing to allow Viacom to access users' private videos and our search technology," Lacavera said. "We will ask Viacom to revere users' privacy and allow us to anonymize the logs before producing them under the court's order."[10] The small % of elite users who read /. know about logs, but 99% of the public has no idea. They just click the "Watch the cute kittez in this video" link that their cousin e-mailed them. They have no idea YouTube is associated with Google, what a log is, or who Viacom is. It's not as if that info is clearly presented to them when they click forwarded YouTube links.[12] Google has also been ordered to provide copies off all videos that have ever been removed from YouTube. Viacom contends Google's YouTube infringes on its works on a massive scale and that the online video site isn't just providing storage space for the videos.[24] Viacom also wanted Google's advertising schema database which contains all the advertising companies and amounts charged for ads within YouTube. This request was also denied by Judge Stanton because he didn't think it was relevant to the case.[24] The less vague an attack by Viacom, the more effective. All now seems to depend on Google'''s ability to convince the presiding judge that IPs are both too revealing and not revealing enough. Which would be supremely difficult to do at this point, I think.[7] Google requested Thursday that the judge reconsider the ruling. "We see no reason why Viacom and the other petitioners seek or require such information," Google said in a letter filed with the court.[10] Google on the other hand tried to request that only data with the personal identifiable information eliminated be given to Viacom, but Google senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera said Google was disappointed that "the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history."[25] "We are investigating techniques, including anonymization, to enhance the security of information that will be produced," said Michael Fricklas, general counsel at Viacom. Fricklas said Viacom would not have direct access to the data, and that its use would be strictly limited by the court order.[4] We should possess our personal information and we should have to right to say who can see it, and when. Concretely in Google's case, they should offer privacy options whereby all of your personal information would be stored only on your machine. They could still access it, but they'd have to respect your privacy preferences--and you could always change your mind. (Of course the data should be signed to prevent you from tampering with it, but that's a relatively trivial aspect.) I feel like this approach is the only thing that would really give meaning to privacy in the computer age.[12] No private data changes hands. I personally cannot comprehend how a judge ruled that privacy issues resulting from this are "speculative". You are essentially handing over information on millions of people on what content they watched, uploaded, commented on, rated, tagged, etc. to a media company, without need. This information is also the foundation for YouTube's business being handed over to a competitor. The judge says it's speculative? I say remove the judge for willfully violating the privacy of millions of citizens and foreign nationals.[12] The decision ordering YouTube to divulge "all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website" was summarized by a news writer as "the viewing habits of every user who has watched any clip on YouTube" and is obviously, on the face of it, overbroad and overreaching -- laughably so.[26] The data will include unique internet addresses, email accounts and the history of every video watched on the website, giving Viacom's experts the ability to conduct a detailed examination of the viewing habits of millions of people around the world.[9] This is a perfect example of why google can not be trusted with our information, People may not realize but this is only the beginning, next they will contact every U.S. Based Internet Service Provider, then force them to hand over names and addresses of everyone on that list, which by law they will be required to do.[15] Google is wrong about IP addresses. They just say what suit them the best, which is wrong(evil:). Btw, some people use their own name as username or their name can be found on their page when matching the username.[15] There is an interesting tie in here to something I've promoted all along: If the last mile was owned by cooperative groups (meaning NOT ISPs) then they could pool the IP addresses assigned in a random, and meaningless way. That is to say that if 237 people in a housing association were sharing DHCP IP addresses through a server system with enough bandwidth that many ISPs could hook up and serve out email and other services by user, it would be possible to hide the end user IP. Then any stats by Google or others would apply to the group, not an individual.[12] People's online searches can accidentally reveal identities even without accompanying onscreen nicknames or IP addresses, according to Opsahl. The case, and this judgment, could have broad consequences for Internet content and user behavior. The giving out of copyrighted materials online, both in music and video, has become commonplace in recent years, creating tension between copyright holders who believe they should control their material and Internet users who wish to share and manipulate the content.[10] Google's attorneys tried to block the request on privacy grounds, but Stanton argued that IP addresses aren't accurate enough to provide the true identity of the video viewer.[24] 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 terabyte hard drives." Update: 07/03 18:05 GMT by T : Brian Aker, now of MySQL but long ago Slashdot's "database thug," writes a journal entry on how companies could intelligently treat such potentially sensitive user data.[12] Lawyers for Google Inc., which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data -- equivalent to the text of roughly 12 million books -- would be expensive, time-consuming and a threat to users' privacy.[27] Google's lawyers had argued that the cost of producing complete logs of YouTube's viewers would be prohibitive. That line of reasoning was rejected by the court, which said that concerns over privacy were speculative.[9] Following on from my posting two days ago, the EFF is reporting that Viacom has issued a statement regarding the U.S. court ruling over disclosure of those YouTube video viewing logs.[19] U.S. Courts are going to be brought to their knees as Viacom files 100 million copyright infringement lawsuits. This could be a very good thing, as maybe the courts will see the folly of the current laws.[12] The issue of whether YouTube and other similar sites are responsible for the gazillion copyright violations that occur there is legally still up in the air. This Viacom lawsuit should hopefully clear it up but until then Google's position is that they are doing everything they can to prevent copyrighted materials from being posted.[12] Viacom's lawsuit was initially filed last year, but was refiled in a modified form last month. According to Viacom, Google should get more involved in finding ways to stop users from uploading copyrighted materials, seeing that at this point YouTube's only measure for this problem enables owners to complain about a certain post and block it from being viewed.[18] Some experts say virtually every Internet user has visited YouTube. Google and Viacom said they had had discussions about ways to further protect users' anonymity, but as of Thursday evening the two companies had yet to agree on how to do that.[4] Viacom, as I understand, want to show what percentage of YouTube content views are of Viacom content. In order to accomplish this all they need to do is provide Google with a list of content IDs, which they would need to have if they themselves were to perform the analysis anyway, and then to allow Google to provide a count of views for each of these pieces of content versus the total of all other content views for the same period.[12] Apparently, Viacom wants to study the situation, perhaps to measure the problem and to consider what further remedy may be in order. What might "further remedy" mean? In addition to cash from YouTube, further remedy could mean punishment or retribution for those who (a.) upload infringing videos or (b.) watch infringing videos. To go after those who knowingly upload videos that infringe seems understandable. To go after those who have watched such videos seems like a blow below the belt. In the present instance, we are not contemplating that all such videos are involved.[26] "All" cannot be implicated, and Stanton is supporting a dragnet approach that releases TMI -- too much information -- to Viacom. If we followed my logic above, Viacom should be most interested in those users who uploaded the infringing videos, not those who watched them.[26] YouTube is a large repository of videos, with a large user base -- a crowd of people go there all the time. The users do more than watch videos -- they also post them, where they become visible to that same large community of users.[26] Chances are that Google themselves has never had to follow-up on an IP address to identify a user for anyone except the Chinese government and/or the NSA, neither of which are our friends. The first poster who asks why they keep this at all, let alone weren't anonymizing it long ago has it right. This is hardly the first time Google has had to turn over access records so they certainly know that it can and will happen.[12] In Europe, regulators decided in February that the addresses were personal data subject to significant protection. In U.S. court cases, companies suing over defamation on the web often have to show the judge that they have a good case - and the anonymous critics get a chance to respond - before a service provider can be compelled to turn over an IP address.[5] Judge Louis Stanton's ruling may signal the start of a willingness to favour copyright holders over privacy proponents, following years of court decisions making it more difficult to get that kind of information, said William Heller, an intellectual property lawyer at McCarter & English LLP in Newark, N.J. "This could represent a shift in what courts are willing to do," said Heller in a telephone interview.[2] This is true, but it's not the worst of it. Of course, these records will go straight to the MPAA, despite the contraints placed on their use. This is either a case of extreme naivete on the part of the judge in ignoring the privacy ramifications in his incredible ruling, or quite possibly a simple case of corruption. Such naivete would be so incredible in a judge that isn't senile, that corruption has to be far more likely. As for Google, their lawyers should have IMMEDIATELY said to the judge "Our client cannot do that, on privacy grounds.[12] "Media giant Viacom's copyright violation case against Google took a new twist in a ruling that could have serious privacy implications."[10] Call it payback time. This is part of a $1bn case which Viacom has undertaken to establish whether it is an infringement for YouTube to host copyright material on their website without permission.[11] Viacom wants the viewing data in part to help it determine the extent to which YouTube's success was built on the popularity of copyright clips that were illegally posted to the site.[4] Cyndy, here is a political video: It is a video about the 18,000 votes that were "lost" in the Sarasota, FL election of November 2006. It's a video that raise serious questions about the integrity of that election. I do understand that Viacom has claimed that data regarding views of this video is somehow relevant to their claims of copyright infringement. This video is core political speech. If you're saying that this video is now illegal in Florida, it's certainly not because it infringes Viacom's copyrights.[15] Sure, you could strip everything out of the data, but then you would just have public information, since youtube will tell you how many views each video has already. I presume the people who want to "anonymize" think they will, like the AOL logs, give pseudonyms to people.[12] Google has been ordered to hand over terabytes of video search information that shows the details of every video ever played on YouTube.[24] I believe that most usage of YouTube is normal and healthy. It can also happen that a user uploads a video that is a bootleg copy of copyrighted material, or that otherwise infringes upon copyrights, trademarks, or other protected, proprietary, or privileged information.[26] Terra gets Olympic Internet rightsMEXICO CITY (AP) _ Internet company Terra says it has been awarded Internet and mobile rights to transmit the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Latin America. Terra says its Olympic Games site will go live Aug. 1. It will include 13 different channels where users can choose whatever event they want to see 24 hours a day. 2 teens attacked in town mocked in YouTube videosDOVER, N.Y. (AP) _ Two teenagers who drove to Oniontown after a series of YouTube videos portrayed the hamlet as a run-down, backwoods dump were pelted with rocks by an angry group of young residents, authorities said.[23] In addition to a law that specifically protects video renters from being identified, "there is a more fundamental constitutional issue about the right to view videos anonymously, read anonymously, receive information anonymously," said attorney Kurt Opsahl of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. "IP addresses are the primary means for identifying individual speakers on the internet," he said. "It's vital that they be protected and recognized as personally identifying information."[5] There is still no word over what happens with regards IP addresses - if it even gets that far - from other nations, in particular places like the EU where privacy laws would be breached left, right and centre. One wrong move from either of these companies is going to end in a deluge of legal threats. The situation both companies are now in is not good for either of them, and in some ways makes their spat over copyright seem trivial. It does seem more effort than its worth.[7] The RIAA is able to use IP addresses combined with timestamps to identify ISP account holders. It doesn't identify any actual copyright infringers, but they don't care as long as they have somebody to sue. If these logs were deleted after 3 days this whole RIAA mess would have been a non-starter. We just have this compulsion to hang onto everything because we can, and perhaps with the faint hope that somewhere down the line we'll be able to show extreme cleverness to our PHB's when they ask some inane question like, "Duh, how many unique IP addresses have accessed our website since 1991?" and we'll be able to say, "Give me 10 minute and I'll let you know (wag tail)."[12] They are many webpages and other services that still show the IP addresses with date/time, no need for a lawyer and private investigator to match all these infos that are available publicly to ID a person.[15] There's no doubt in my mind that Google saves userid as well as IP address in the same data file. They want that entire profile for ad targeting.[15] Stanton referred to Google'''s own blog entry in which the company argued the IP address alone cannot identify a specific individual.[8] Imagine someone make a public post on another site and his IP address appears there, you match it with the Youtube IP and date/hour and bingo, you know who it was, at least at that moment. The whole privacy concept is just starting as they are more and more information easly available by anyone.[15] Opsahl also said that even records that did not include a user's login name and IP address might be able to be associated with specific people.[4] The data would only be revealed to the plaintiffs/claimants. Besides, the data would not contain specific identifiers like user'''s real name or his e-mail address. Username would help identify only those who have created it using their real names.[16] Google have argued that user data could not be handed over because of privacy issues.[20] Now, yes, it is a good thing that Google want to anonymise the logs in order respect user privacy.[28] Because it doesn't matter where the logs are housed as long as Google does business in the U.S. Housing them elsewhere does not make them immune to a court order.[12] Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain -- which will not include personally identifiable information -- will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against You Tube and Google, will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner.[19] Google responded in a statement: "We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history.'''[17] Thanks for the catch! Edited accordingly. Why can't Viacom explain to Google exactly what kind of information or results it hopes to get out of the data, and then ask Google to supply it with the results, rather than asking for the raw data? End of the day, if they think Google is lying or trying to cover up, they can still go after the raw data again.[7] In a statement on Thursday, Google said it would lobby for the data it provides to be scrubbed clean of personal information.[9]  File under 'almost as big a shock as the original ruling as Google lets slip a comment which would seem to rule out an appeal over the YouTube video privacy debacle. [28] Google's duty to protect the privacy of millions cannot be dismissed by a legal ruling." Judges are not omnipotent, even when some of them think they are.[12] Viacom countered by saying it wanted to prove that Google manipulated the code to treat copyrighted material differently, but Judge Stanton didn't buy that argument.[24] At first, I was as outraged as everyone else, assuming that Judge Stanton was one more government figure without a clue how the Internet even works. I called my mother, who works in the courts, and ran it by her, and she pointed out two things to me: one, any Judge has a stable full of much younger and savvier law clerks who research this stuff to death, and two, everything a Judge does is based on precedent.[15] The judge's verdict ignores U.S. federal law as well as a "fiasco" that occurred after America Online gave researchers what it thought was anonymous search data, Opsahl said.[10] That didn't mean much to one European BitTorrent tracker site who was ordered by U.S. judges to turn over all access logs where the site didn't even keep logs to start with. The judge said in his infinite wisdom that because the data existed in RAM at some instant that the logs were required to be created and then turned over.[12] The constant fast-paced interchange possible on the internet, where you can adopt another persona, can leave users feeling let down by the real world. Studies in Australia and the U.S. have shown that people who spend hours on the internet can end up lonely and with fewer real friends than those in previous generations. Although there's no hard evidence of an internet suicide pact among the 22 young people who have died in Bridgend recently, they all belong in this age range.[6] Even if the data isn't useful today, or at all useful into the foreseeable future, we still hang on to it. We save every detail we can just to prove how clever we are to have been able to discover it in the first place. (Note: P2P program writers are the same, and that's how Media Sentry can tell you so much about filesharers they discover on the Internet right down to the full directory paths of files.) Now if storage wasn't so d@mn cheap we wouldn't have this habit, but Moore's Law applied to disc drives means we no longer have to store 2-digit years and have Y2K problems. We have these problems now instead.[12] s lawyers strongly put forth a point that producing 12 terabytes of data would be time-consuming, expensive and also a threat to privacy laws but all in vain, Stanton declined saying the privacy concerns are unfounded. '''While the logging database is large, all of its contents can be copied onto a few off-the-shelf four-terabyte hard drives,''' he said.[16] User privacy until the data "accidentally" gets let out on the web somehow but hackers or a rogue employee.[7] YouTube users from watchers to watched - web - Technology - theage.com.au The Age: national, world, business, entertainment, sport and technology news from Melbourne's leading newspaper.[9] The fact that every video you watched on YouTube is now in the hands of a crooked bunch of corporate lawyers should occurr to you. This finally drives the stake through heart of the Internet.[12] Viacom and YouTube are discussing a plan to replace the internet addresses with codes, a move designed to prevent linking a YouTube log-on name with a particular computer.[5] At the maximum end of the range, YouTube should not be shut down. They ought to be as safe as kittens. Viacom ought to be handed a list of their videos and the viewer counts (just an aggregate total of views -- not information that reveals who viewed the videos, and certainly not the other viewing behavior of those or other users) and at most, the account information for the infringing uploaders. That's the upper limit of what should conceivably be rendered to Viacom.[26] The search engine leader has pointed out that it does a lot more than it is legally bound to in order to prevent unauthorized copyrighted videos from being shared on YouTube. The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects companies as long as they take down in a timely manner copyrighted content once they are notified by the copyright owner.[18] Google's homepage at google.com has been changed: the search engine leader has decided that a privacy link, which leads to the company's straightforward Privacy Center, should be fit somewhere on its. Desperate to reduce the gap between its search engine, Live Search, and omnipresent Google, Microsoft has been searching lately for the best solution.[18] "Don't be evil" has translated into webmail accounts with massive amounts of space, web ads that's don't flash or pop-up, and a search engine who's front page maintains the very bland basic HTML feel. Now people dream of Google being the great fixer in any industry that has annoyed them over the years.[12] Google Street View has been a somewhat controversial tool ever since it was first introduced this time last year. So far, only people in America have had to worry about their rights to privacy being violated.[29] Google is zee devil. They are out to kill us all. Seriously, do people thrive on having enemys? Do they find no happyness simply in a group being what they are? Protip; "The Man" isn't out to get you, and all the companys aren't working for him.[12] The records could have been unobtainable by the U.S. division of Google. The records in the "safe" country would be owned by an independent subsidiary, such that the related company (Google) wouldn't have direct executive authority to force the other company to release the records. Because they're independent companies and Google has no legal authority to force an outside company to do anything.[12] We keep using Google, though we knew about the risks and problems. The day a company risks significant revenue over privacy, is the day they will pay attention to it.[12] I use clusty.com for searches. The results seem to be of the same quality as google's, and their privacy policy is much better.[12] Why do I feel like I'm the only person that takes "don't be evil" with a grain of salt. Google has been a great corporation because they understood people on the Internet and how they wanted to be treated. They also use that knowledge when they calculate how far they can push the envelope.[12] Fooling around on the internet and playing at being another person isn't harmful in itself - as long as you accept that, in the real world, it takes a lot more work to get on with people. Real friendships are ultimately far more valuable, but they take more effort than the click of a mouse to sustain. I'm loving the soapy drama unfolding in New York, where one-time supermodel Christie Brinkley has insisted that her messy divorce from hubby number four, Peter Cook, is heard in open court. She claims he spent £2,000 a month viewing internet porn, and instead of arguing over who keeps the wedding photos they are bickering over who gets which boat and custody of their daughter, the unfortunately named Sailor Lee. Christie sobbed buckets recalling the discovery that her husband was cheating with a teenager from his office, and the girl in question has turned up in court wearing exactly the same outfit as Christie - a super-tight beige skirt and a crisp, white shirt.[6] Now, a court ruling in the U.S. means that any shred of privacy you thought you had on the internet will be violated too.[6] Privacy experts fear not the actual YouTube logs at issue being revealed, but rather the precedent set which extends what courts are willing to do.[18] YouTube's logs are protected by a special provision which triggers contempt of court charges if the data is used for anything else other than proving the prevalence of piracy on YouTube.[18] If they really wanted to, they could still manage this. encrypt the logs with your youtube account password, and then then using the Ajax/Zero Knowlege App ideas that we had an article about the other day (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/30/1416238), ensure that decryption of that data in done at the user end.[12] I just happen to be one who has written some software and visited some court rooms, and hence may be competent to offer an opinion. (My experience stems from the 1990s and is unrelated to the case at hand. It is also correct to say that I am a YouTube user.)[26] They can't and won't. Apparently these guys fear that Viacom's outside experts will ruin their careers and get themselves in trouble with the court by publishing a list of everyone who has ever watched a Hello Kitty porno clip.[12] Viacom says it wanted the video logs to prove whether copyright-protected videos were more heavily watched than amateur clips.[24] The company contends that YouTube commits "duplication, distribution and public display" when a video is watched.[24] YouTube has implemented video filtering technology which enables immediate detection of most copyrighted clips.[18] People from all ages and strata of society are welcome to be users, and videos have appeared on every conceivable topic and in every conceivable genre. [26] Viacom has gone a step further and guaranteed that individual users will not be prosecuted using the data.[16] "Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any user," Viacom said.[14] Users are third parties and not the defendant here. For the inappropriate release of their information, users could become the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit of biblical proportions.[26] Google wants to keep individual histories to show more relevant videos and to comply with laws in other countries. [5] We may THINK there's no reason for Google to have to keep logs for 18 months, but these days I wouldn't be surprised to find there's some hidden provision of the Patriot Act, or possibly some law we've never heard of, which it's illegal for us to hear of or read in the first place. Maybe there IS a law requiring them to keep it for 18 months, it's just not one the public is allowed to know of until it's used to prosecute them.[12] If that happens, Google has no plans to appeal, according to people working on the case who demanded anonymity because of the high financial stakes in the litigation.[5] @privacy-maniac Then why is Google tracking that data at all? If they weren't pulling it themselves, they wouldn't be in this mess.[15] Btw, imagine if both Google and Facebook get an order to release their data to a third party for analysis.[15] What's really ironic is that Google is (from what I've heard) anal about anonymizing everything internally. Not only that, but it can take a good while before employees with a good reason to access such data get said access.[12] I think it's fairly obvious that not only does Google have the IP addresses, but also the userids, and that would clearly separate, for instance, me from my husband unless we were sharing an account.[15] If YouTube carries material which is infringing on the rights of Viacom, then one would think that the simple removal of the material would be a central and key feature of a remedy. [26] Viacom believe the move is the next step in enforcing copyright law on the internet.[1] The video privacy protection act should be immediately amended to include support for Internet video services.[12] Congress passed that law in 1988 to protect video rental records, after a newspaper disclosed the rental habits of Robert Bork, then a Supreme Court nominee.[4] REFERENCES 1. Irish watchdog slams ruling over YouTube - National News, Frontpage - Herald.ie 2. Google pushed to reveal users 3. Indiantelevision.com's > Digital Edge > Google ordered to show Youtube data to Viacom 4. Viacom Vs. Google: Privacy Concerns Overshadow Lawsuit - Technology - redOrbit 5. Concord Monitor - YouTube and Viacom clash in copyright case 6. Editor-At-Large: Privacy is down the YouTube and real friends are history - Janet Street-Porter, Commentators - The Independent 7. YouTube, Viacom Both Want To Uphold User Privacy. As For IPs 8. YouTube ordered to reveal viewers- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times 9. YouTube users from watchers to watched - web - Technology - theage.com.au 10. Google Keeps The Code, Viacom Gets Access To 12TB YouTube Data | eBrandz Search Marketing & Technology News 11. tehran times : The internet is not free 12. Slashdot | Finding Fault With Google's Privacy Policy 13. ABS-CBN News Online (Beta) 14. Viacom and the YouTube privacy problem on Product Reviews Net 15. Google Sold Us Out: The Viacom Decision - Profy.Com 16. Google Ordered To Expose Identities Of Its Users - The Money Times 17. Google told to release YouTube records to Viacom 18. Viacom-YouTube Ruling Triggers Far-Reaching Privacy Concerns 19. Viacom defends itself over YouTube data log disclosure 20. Google forced to hand over records of YouTube users | Merchant News Syndication 21. Top Technology News 22. Google trying to take privacy seriously | Googling Google | ZDNet.com 23. AP Technology NewsBrief at 11:22 p.m. EDT 24. Tom's Guide: Computing News of the Day 25. Court orders Google to turn over YouTube user database 26. YouTube User Decries Spill of Video Logs 27. The Hawk Eye 28. iTWire - No appeal from Google on YouTube data ruling 29. TECH.BLORGE.com Google must hand YouTube log files over to ViacomCONTENTS:
The court order comes as Google-owned YouTube continues in its long-running fight against accusations of copyright infringement lodged against it by media conglomerate Viacom Inc. New York-based Viacom is seeking $1 billion USD in damages from YouTube -- the world's third most popular Web destination -- for the illegal posting of Viacom-owned content produced by networks such as MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon. Issued on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton, who described Google's privacy claims as'speculative,' the court ruling now forces YouTube to provide Viacom with access to its massive 12TB information logging database. By granting Viacom access to its vast database, which reportedly contains information that equates to some 10 million books, it will enable the media heavyweight to rifle through the login IDs, times of viewing, video clip identifications, and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses related to every one of YouTube's users. It is apparently Viacom's intention to show that illegally posted and copyrighted clips taken from the likes of Comedy Central production 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' are massively more popular than YouTube's user-created content and are thus providing YouTube and owners Google with significant amounts of ill-gotten revenue. [1] The next time you go on holiday or business you might find yourself arrested at immigration for a "crime" you never actually committed. But. well, actually you did commit it, they have the logs to prove it. I would be intrigued to see how viacom would go about proving anyone who has watched a video on youtube, did so with intent, the urls are ambiguous to say the least, if you are sent a link you have no way of knowing what awaits on the other end other than the fact it's on youtube, uploading of videos is clearly traceable and obvious as it requires an account, and intent. If there is information within these records like search history, and which accounts have searched for what, THEN that could prove someones intent to unauthorisedly view their oh-so-precious copyrighted ker-rap, but clicking on a link. At 2:05pm on 04 Jul 2008, MightyDrunken wrote: I think the interesting part of the story is why do Viacom need user ids and IP addresses? They have said themselves that they are not after the YouTube users themselves and the case is against Google anyway. When the prosecutors ask for discovery material they always go over board and ask for everything they can. It is for the courts to decide what is reasonable and yet the judge says that the privacy concerns are "speculative". Viacom do not need 100s millions of IP addresses and user name, in fact they are irrelevant to the case. All this data should be anonymised.[2] Google's senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera said: "We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's over-reaching 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." Viacom has hit back saying they will not be requesting any personalized information about users, they simply want to compare the attractiveness of infringing over non-infringing videos. Google has been criticized for their arrogance as in the past warnings were given about the potential danger of not anonymising IP addresses. The company took steps last year to begin this process with their search engine but nothing was said regarding YouTube.[3] Anyone who has even briefly visited the popular video-sharing website will know that there is a mass of legally protected television content there, all of it freely available at the click of mouse. In its pursuit of this case, Viacom has blundered into the treacherous terrain of internet privacy. The media company has this week persuaded an American court to order YouTube to hand over details of who has been watching video clips on its site. In resisting Viacom, Google, YouTube's parent company, thus finds itself in the unusual position of standing up for the privacy of its users. There is an irony here because Google itself stands accused of breaching personal privacy through its Street View program, which is being extended to include some British cities. This program matches photos of locations to Google's online maps.[4] The Viacom / YouTube case has major implications for video & music sharing sites the world over but yesterday's developments will have far reaching implications for the world in general. Judge Louis Stanton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the judge presiding over the case, has ordered that YouTube 's owners Google hand over the complete record of all it's users viewing records.[5] That judge is mad if he thinks 12TB will fit on a couple of standard hard drives! I would imagine Google will have to create some sort of RAID array of about 20 or so 1TB drives to store all that data and its parity information. Actually, they should supply it as RAID0 and hope Viacom damage one of the drives. ;) I'm actually surprised it's only 12TB, I'd have thought it would be much bigger given how many people use YouTube every day. That said, why does Google have to capture IP address and username with every video viewing? I could understand needing something to uniquely record a viewing to prevent someone watching a video multiple times to boost his viewing numbers, but this situation is excellent proof that Google's obsession with logging people's searches is wide open to personal identification and breaching their privacy. Things could be even worse if they were forced to open up their web search history. This ruling sets a bad precedent for people getting their hands on that data in the future I think.[6] The judgement has lead to an outcry by privacy and data protection activists. The Electronic Frontier Foundation have said that this ruling " erroneously ignores the protections of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), and threatens to expose deeply private information about what videos are watched by YouTube users ". Viacom have issused statments reassuring YouTube users that their data will be secure. They say " It is unfortunate that we have been compelled to go to court to protect Viacom's rights and the rights of the artists who work with and depend on us. YouTube and Google have put us in this position by continuing to defend their illegal and irresponsible conduct and profiting from copyright infringement, when they could be implementing the safe and legal user generated content experience they promise.[5] Privacy advocates are far from pleased with the court's ruling, claiming that it blatantly ignores the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, which was passed by Congress in order to prevent the viewing habits of individuals from being accessed through forced disclosure. In an effort to calm the fears of YouTube's audience, Viacom has said that it has no intention of bringing individual users to task, regardless of whether they choose to watch or upload copyrighted material. 'We're not going to use the data to find them. We're not going to use it to sue them. We're not going to use it to look at who they are,' offered Viacom counsel Michael Fricklas regarding the ruling, before insisting that Viacom simply wants to use the information to prove the huge popularity discrepancies between copyright protected and non-protected content.[1] Viacom claims to have identified around 160,000 unathorised clips on YouTube and believes the data can prove that a breach of copyright has taken place. Google had argued that its viewing logs contained too much information and handing them over would infringe privacy, but the U.S. court dismissed the argument as "speculative." According to U.S. reports, Google's lawyers have said they will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow time for the data to be anonymised by Google.[7] Google has been instructed to hand over the viewing details of YouTube users. This ruling is as a result of their court battle with Viacom, the company that owns Paramount Pictures and MTV, who filed a 1 billion dollar lawsuit last year March. Viacom'''s gripe is that their content is being viewed on YouTube without permission.'' They identified around 160,000 unauthorized clips which had been viewed 1,5 billion times according to a BBC report.[3] Whilst much of Hollywood settles into the idea of webertainment as the inevitable medium of the near future, hostilities are still raging on the legal front. Viacom is far from agreeing to settle the US$1 billion dollar copyright suit that this week got a boost from a judge in New York who ordered Google to turn over the IP addresses of alleged copyright infringers, their YouTube user-names, the videos they watched, and when they were screened.Viacom, which is the parent company of Paramount Studios and MTV, claims that the data is part of legal discovery it is entitled in order to prosecute its lawsuit.[8] The issues surrounding online privacy and Google are never far away from one another. Today Google (as owners of YouTube) have been ordered by the Department of Justice to provide user details from the online video site in their lawsuit with media group Viacom for copyright infringement. That is every record of every user and what they watched; 12 terabytes of IP addresses and usernames.[9] Viacom Inc. wants YouTube's logs to help determine if unauthorized material makes up a major share of what gets watched there. The media giant, which owns the rights to such shows as "The Colbert Report" and "South Park," is suing YouTube and corporate parent Google Inc. for copyright infringement. Viacom General Counsel Michael Fricklas pledged "unequivocally" Thursday not to use the data to learn the real names of YouTube users in order to sue them for uploading unauthorized clips, as the recording industry has done to people who illegally shared music online.[10] The judge did deny Viacom'''s request to see Google'''s secret source code for Internet and YouTube searches. '''It is unfortunate that we have been compelled to go to court to protect Viacom'''s rights and the rights of the artists who work with and depend on us,''' Viacom said in a statement. '''YouTube and Google have put us in this position by continuing to defend their illegal and irresponsible conduct and profiting from copyright infringement, when they could be implementing the safe and legal user generated content experience they promise.'''[11] Just because I leave a digital trail when using the net doesn't mean that people not associated with any site that I visit or use has a right to that data. The internet is at a stage where it is having to define its form and function more so than at any other point in its history. Companies all want their interests and rights protected, which is fair enough, but this shouldn't come at the cost of the end user. At its heart the internet is a global information sharing and communication tool. The more rights large corporations regarding access to users data, the further we will move away from this and toward an extension of the media and entertainment industry. Whether Viacom has a right to protect its interests the U.S. courts should never have allowed this. Added to this that any data that is held on an American server can be requestioned by the U.S. government at any time (if you have a google, hotmail or yahoo email account this is worth thinking about) it all adds up to a situation where you are constantly being monitored by a range organisation protecting third party interests, in a medium that is meant to be about freedom of information (in a moral not financial capacity). At 3:13pm on 04 Jul 2008, zax-uk wrote: I think this case highlights that there are important lessons to be learned by all parties, not least, the users. It?s a poignant reminder for Google that storing information about its users for their own ends leaves themselves and those users at risk of forced disclosure of that information to third parties. As for Viacom, it pays to keep their dubious and draconian business practices in the public limelight; Lest we forget, at our own peril.[2] Google had objected to Viacom's request for the data, arguing that it would violate users' privacy. The Mountain View, Calif.- based company drew fire from privacy groups because it has written elsewhere, when defending its long-term collection of data on users' Web surfing habits, that Internet addresses aren't "personally identifiable information." In his written order, which covered a number of requests for evidence, Stanton cited a Feb. 22 posting to Google's official blog saying that in most cases, an Internet Protocol address "without additional information" - typically from an Internet service provider - can't identify an individual. That's not always true, though, and people assuming that their behavior will remain private sometimes use their legal names as log- on handles.[12] Google hopes thereby to avoid having to shorten the period for which it stores search query data ''' including IP addresses ''' from the 18 months it currently practises, a fact not overlooked by the judge. He also pointed out that the search engine company itself had declared that the login name for YouTube is an "anonymous pseudonym", which users could think up for themselves. The idea that web users might in some cases use their actual names appears not to have occurred to Google. Media company Viacom, which is responsible for channels such as MTV and VH1, launched its action against Google and its YouTube subsidiary in New York in March 2007.[13] No use - my data is in California, and it belongs to Google, not me. The other troubling aspect about this case was that it was only the blogs that seemed to understand the significance of the ruling when it emerged on Wednesday night. Much of the mainstream media ignored it at first, seeming to regard it as a victory for Google, because the judge said the search firm didn't have to reveal its source code. Great news for Google - but the other part of the ruling was deeply worrying for its users, as the technology bloggers were quick to spot. Indeed Google's statement began by welcoming its victory on the code issue, before moving on to the little problem of the YouTube logs.[2] A judge ruled Google must turn over the logins and IP address of everyone who has ever watched anything on Youtube to Viacom, which is suing Google over copyrighted clips appearing on YouTube. Privacy advocates are criticizing the decision, but Viacom claims it will only use the information for its case, "It will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner."[14] Privacy activists from the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a blog post the order "threatens to expose deeply private information" and violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 federal law passed after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental habits were revealed. Representatives of both companies said they were looking to work out how to comply with the court order to share video data while ensuring personally identifiable information is secure. Viacom responded in a statement that it needs the data to demonstrate video piracy patterns that are the heart of its case against YouTube. It sought to diffuse privacy fears, saying it had no interest in identifying individual users.[15] Google senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera saidher company was looking to resolve the issue quickly in a waythat balanced Viacom and other plaintiffs' need for evidence inthe case while "carving out some space for user privacy." Lacavera said her company was pleased the court's decisionhad put limits on evidence discovery, including refusing toallow Viacom access to YouTube's search technology or to users'private videos on the site.[16] Viacom, which owns the Paramount movie studio as well as the MTV and VH1 television networks, demands $1 billion from YouTube, because the site allows people to post Viacom copyrighted videos. Google defends itself citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted in 1998 and which states that web sites should not be held responsible for the content its users upload, if they take down copyrighted or illegal content once they are formally announced of its presence. Even though it is a known fact that YouTube removes videos immediately if they are announced that the content is protected or does not comply with its policy, Viacom said that the website and its parent company are still taking advantage of the massive traffic these videos are generating even in the supposedly short period that they are online.[17] The decision raised concerns among user privacy advocacy groups which claim that the ruling comes against the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, which says that nobody should have access to information that discloses what videos a person rented. Viacom said that it does not intend to use this information to sue people who post pirated videos or watch them. The company requested this information just to prove that pirated content brings YouTube more traffic than the home-made one.[17] The information to be disclosed includes users' log-in ID of, the computer IP address and video clip details. Initially, these personal details will only relate to the U.S., but it is thought that this ruling will soon be extended worldwide. Viacom's response was that it needs the data to demonstrate video piracy patterns, in its case against YouTube.[18] U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton authorized full access to YouTube logs after Viacom Inc. argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips. YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., is to release the information disclosed to the plaintiffs and would reveal less specific information such as a username over an email address.[19] While a U.S. court ruled Google must hand over details of every person that has watched a video on YouTube, professional networking site LinkedIn has been criticised for exploiting its users and selling their personal information at a costly price to human resource professionals.[20] "Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against YouTube and Google," Viacom said. "It will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner." In what Google claims as a partial victory, Stanton denied Viacom's request to get its hands on secret source code used in YouTube video searches as well as for Internet searches.[21] Appropriately enough, YouTube chose Independence Day to release a response to the court order it received yesterday to hand over user information to Viacom as part the media giant's ongoing $1 billion lawsuit against the video sharing service.[22] Aside from the issue of the Court requesting all this info to hand over to Viacom, another issue should be why Google needs to KEEP all this info. I notice you always bash Google, and defend those who attack them. Why? I strongly suspect much of the information Google keeps on YouTube is required by law because of BS copyright provisions that require they do so for their own protection.[23] Privacy campaigners, though, were unhappy with the court's ruling. 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," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a statement. The court ruled that YouTube didn't have to give up details of its search algorithm to Viacom, though, heeding Google's claims that this was a trade secret and shouldn't be revealed.[24] In reaction to the ruling, Google has said it will not issue an appeal. The search company has voiced its disappointment in relation to the court's decision and has also dispatched a letter to Viacom asking that it be allowed to 'anonymize the logs' before opening them in order to fully protect user IDs and IP addresses.[1] In today's FT, Google's lawyer Catherine Lacavera says the Search Company was "disappointed" and that Google are asking Viacom to "respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs". While it is laudable of Google to fight for the protection of its users' privacy it could equally be accused of adopting contradictory practices with private information, the latest accusation coming from the Privacy International organisation. They complained to Google that the Street View tool (which I enthusiastically blogged about a few weeks ago) could contravene the UK's Data Protection laws because its images inevitably feature identifiable members of the public. Because Google make commercial gain from the images, the argument goes that each individual should have to give their permission if they appear. Google on the other hand say that they are using technology to blur the faces of anyone who is snapped by the Google car taking the pictures. Privacy International has asked the firm to release the technology specs to prove that the blurring will actually work on both car number plates as well as faces. If Google doesn't comply with this request, they will be getting in touch with the Information Commissioner in order to prevent Street View UK from being published. Darren Waters BBC blog on this, includes a copy of the letter Privacy International sent to Google.[9] Continues after advertisement. The Court dismissed this argument with no analysis, stating "defendants cite no authority barring them from disclosing such information in civil discovery proceedings, and their privacy concerns are speculative." That is to say Google attorneys' complaints about the ruling are suspiciously couched in legal-beagle PR spin about user privacy rights that Viacom has already promised to safeguard; rights that Google has never - in its very profitable dealings with the public - ever been super-careful to protect beyond its own interests.[8] The ruling, filed late Wednesday by Judge Louis Stanton of U.S. District Court in New York, shocked privacy advocates. They fear a broader effect from Stanton's finding that so-called Internet Protocol addresses — the unique numbers assigned to each computer or device connected to the Internet — need not be strictly protected because they aren't tied publicly to individual names. "It's a very important privacy moment," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It will remind folks that companies like Google are sitting on top of a lot of personal information that they can't always control."[10] New York ' A billion-dollar court clash between old- and new-media giants took on unexpected privacy ramifications this week when a federal judge ordered YouTube to hand over the log-on names and Internet addresses of every person who has viewed material on the Web's top video site encompassing tens of millions of people.[10] Viacom can and take a run and jump for all I care. At 02:28am on 05 Jul 2008, rawrbex wrote: Honestly I'm annoyed they're getting peoples isp addresses as well as their user info. Honestly I don't see why they can't just ask for a huge list of everything on youtube with the play counts by it. It's not like they actually need to know where people are too see if some random episode of cribs that shouldn't be there has been viewed in the U.S. or France or where the heck ever. They don't really need the user names of the viewers just the uploaders surely? How much stuff has many thousands+ of views? Are they going to stick a law suit on every one of those 1000s people? And even if I had viewed copyrighted material exactly how are they going to prove it was knowingly? And I know of many people that use youtube to view interviews and what not that were on the MTV website (which was free in the first place) or where ever, if mtv themselves would lift the restrictions on their own videos people wouldn't need to rip them off and bung them on youtube.[2] At 1:50pm on 04 Jul 2008, digenie wrote: The interesting thing about this ruling to me is that the U.S. Government were denied a similar request a couple of years ago. Why does Viacom need individual user information? Surely all they need is the overall trends of usage, both in terms of uploading and viewing. It will be interesting to see how America reacts to Viacom's demand's as most Americans use YouTube and there are already calls to boycott Viacom's properties.[2] If Viacom were to use the information in YouTube's logs to go after people who had uploaded or even simply just viewed unauthorised content then people could begin to steer clear of YouTube. "But, if YouTube users start finding themselves subject to the same sort of legal action as Kazaa users, the site could start feeling very different to consumers," he said. Viacom insists that it will not go after individuals and only its legal team will have access to the data, which it wants to establish that a significant amount of copyrighted content is watched on the site.[24] LONDON - Google-owned video-sharing site YouTube has been ordered to provide Viacom with details of its entire user base, so that the MTV Networks owner can use it as evidence to support its argument in the legal battle between the two firms. A U.S. judge has ruled that YouTube user details, including those of its 11.4 million-strong UK monthly users, must be provided to Viacom.[25] The ruling was handed down as part of a legal battle between Google and Viacom over alleged copyright infringements. Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, says it has identified around 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes on YouTube. Following the launch of its billion-dollar lawsuit, YouTube introduced filtering tools in an effort to prevent copyright materials from appearing on the site.[26] To little too late to silence the war drums, and today's ruling was a clear win for Viacom and similarly cranky content owners alike. "YouTube and Google have put us in this position by continuing to defend their illegal and irresponsible conduct and profiting from copyright infringement, when they could be implementing the safe and legal user-generated content experience they promise," Viacom said, responding to a blog entry on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) website.[8] I believe there's a strong likelihood that the YouTube data will be extremely damning to Google. It will likely cast aside any doubt that YouTube couldn't have known that it had a massive problem with copyright infringement and that the prime source of its popularity was not user-generated content. It will likely help Viacom establish " the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing video ". The fact that infringing content was a crucial part of YouTube's success, of course, would explain why YouTube has not dealt with infringing content effectively - its removal would have significantly damaged the company's popularity.[27] The media conglomerate filed the massive lawsuit against Google and YouTube alleging that the websites virtually colluded with copyright-crunching web video pirates by not taking a more active role in inhibiting the trafficking of 160,000+ unauthorised clips of Viacom programming, supposedly viewed more than 1.5 billion times. Google has since put in place audio fingerprinting technology as well as copyright identification software of its own contrivance that enables content owners to more readily police the billion video per month site.[8] Details that would be made available to Viacom include log-in details of YouTube subscribers or viewers, the IP address of the PC or laptop used and video clip |