Web Privacy Issues Sparked Again

A US court ruled yesterday that Viacom can get access to data about EVERYONE who has used YouTube including what they watched! Viacom has decent concerns over copyright infringement but for the courts to have made such a blanket judgment on access to so much personal user data is irresponsible!

Plaintiffs seek 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. They need the data to compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing videos with that of non-infringing videos. A markedly higher proportion of infringing-video watching may bear on plaintiffs’ vicarious liability claim, and defendants’ substantial non-infringing use defense.

The courts ruling means that Viacom will have access to the users login ID, time the video was watched, the user's IP address, and the unique identifier for the video. The court grants all of this access because it said that is the only way that Viacom can determine how many times their copyrighted material has been used. I say that individual viewing data is not necessary! Viacom should only be granted access to how many times a copyrighted piece of content was viewed, and absolutely no information on the viewer themselves. Unfortunately the courts do not define things as accurately as they should alot of the time.

Fortunately Viacom has put out the following statement:

In a statement, the entertainment giant said it did not ask for nor would it obtain "any personally identifiable information of any user."

And News.com has noted that,

The court's protective order stipulates that data turned over to Viacom by Google must be used for the sole purpose of proving Viacom's claim against Google that YouTube is a hotbed of pirated video content, the sources said. Viacom will not have direct access to the YouTube user data, the source said. Access is restricted to outside counsel and experts.

Whew, glad that is settled. Or is it? It appears as though Viacom will not be able to use personal identifiable data. But won't they still have it? And can't they still use it without telling anyone? I guess its useless unless they would have been able to target individuals like the RIAA lawsuits against illegal downloads of music.