Judge Orders Google to Divulge Info on YouTube Viewing Habits

Telecom News Editorials Reports Glossary

Judge Orders Google to Divulge Info on YouTube Viewing Habits

6:30 am on July 7, 2008 | Category: Web Services, Law

A U.S. District Court judge has ordered Google Inc. to hand over details of its YouTube users’ video viewing habits, as part of a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit brought against the site by Viacom, the parent company of MTV.

Viacom argued that Google should hand over data on how people use YouTube, claiming that the information would demonstrate that copyright-protected material is routinely posted and watched on the popular online video website.

In a blow to internet privacy rights, Judge Louis Stanton has granted the request, ordering Google to provide Viacom with details of every video clip uploaded to YouTube, as well as the usernames and IP addresses of viewers. This data could be used to identify individual users who have signed up to YouTube using their own names, or ascertain any viewer’s location with the cooperation of their internet service provider.

Judge Stanton rejected Google’s challenge to Viacom’s disclosure request, describing the company’s privacy concerns as speculative, and suggesting that all the relevant data could be conveniently provided using “a few off-the-shelf four-terabyte hard drives.”

Internet privacy advocates, however, have condemned the order, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation describing it as a “setback to privacy rights [that] threatens to expose deeply private information about what videos are watched by YouTube users.”

“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 EFF stated.

Viacom’s other request, demanding that Google disclose a commercially sensitive source code that would reveal the inner workings of YouTube, was denied by the judge, on the grounds that such an order would force Google itself to divulge copyright-protected data.

Google continues to deny that the YouTube service violates copyright, noting that it removes all copyright-protected material from the site, upon an intellectual property owner’s request. The search giant has accused Viacom of “threatening the way millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.”