Monday, July 7, 2008

YouTube.com Giving away Users

Last Thursday, Google was directed by a US district judge to share the login names and Internet addresses of its YouTube users with media company Viacom. The users of Google's popular video-sharing Web site, YouTube.com, run into millions - YouTube browsing on TV with Neuros release. Meanwhile reports just in suggest that Viacom has agreed to comply with anonymity requests; meaning it might agree to obscure personal identification information. That such private data will be disclosed has set alarm bells ringing. Privacy advocates argue that such disclosure would violate the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, which stipulates that private records may not be turned over to a third-party unless the person whose records are being revealed is given an opportunity to contest such a decision. Viacom has responded saying it has no intention of using personal information to persecute viewers. Rather it only wants to prove that YouTube (Video-browsing made easy)is promoting viewing of pirated content for profits sake.

The court ruling comes after the infamous $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit was slapped on Google by Viacom, which owns cable networks such as MTV, VH1, and Nickelodeon. Viacom alleged that via YouTube, Google was making big bucks by way of uploading and promoting copyrighted data on a large scale. PS: Check out what the Turtle Says.

1 comment:

Stephen said...

This is a complete invasion of privacy on the part of Viacom and our user information doesn’t have any relevance to their billion dollar lawsuit against Google. Google should be able to anatomize the user information before handing over 12 terabytes of personal information so my privacy and the privacy of millions like me are protected. I have a campaign that will force Viacom to allow Google/YouTube to protect us or 100,000 will boycott Viacom and all its subsidiaries: https://www.thepoint.com/campaign...ou-tube- privacy