YouTube Hangs On To Viewer Privacy

YouTube Hangs On To Viewer Privacy

www.webpronews.com

Viacom backs off despite court ruling

The video sharing service managed to keep Viacom from sneaking a peek at the viewing histories of its users.
An earlier and astonishing decision that ordered YouTube to hand over mounds of viewing history data during the discovery phase of Viacom's lawsuit against the site and Google won't take effect.

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Related News Links:
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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Google must divulge YouTube log

This is good news here's a snippet of the stipulation:

1. Substituted Values: When producing data from the Logging Database
pursuant to the Order, Defendants shall substitute values while preserving uniqueness for
entries in the following fields: User ID, IP Address and Visitor ID. The parties shall
agree as promptly as feasible on a specific protocol to govern this substitution whereby
each unique value contained in these fields shall be assigned a correlative unique
substituted value, and preexisting interdependencies shall be retained in the version of the
data produced. Defendants shall promptly (no later than 7 business days after execution
of this Stipulation) provide a proposed protocol for this substitution. Defendants agree to
reasonably consult with Plaintiffs’ consultant if necessary to reach agreement on the
protocol.

You can read the entire agreement in the pdf found here:

Stipulation PDF

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reply to post by JacKatMtn


Who the hell is Viacom .. and what do they want with the information?

IMO, companies should not even keep records of viewing history..

reply to post by Rockpuck


The usual excuse for keeping ALL information is market research aimed at improving customer use etc...

I'm glad that they have been able to stand up against these companies who keep trying to gain entry in, what is, basically private info.

Has anyone actually looked at the T+C's for youtube. Does it state that personal information will never be sold or disclosed in any manner?

If it does, then their might be an uproar from the users against youtube and any agency that 'requires' the data..

I'm gonna go have a look now as it happens..

Here is another news article on this subject:

Viacom allows YouTube to conceal user names in court case

Google may conceal YouTube users' identities when it hands a database of their viewing habits to Viacom International in response to a court order, the companies agreed Monday.

Although Google must still disclose a database logging which videos were viewed and when, it may conceal the User ID, IP (Internet Protocol) Address and Visitor ID fields showing who watched them and where from. Instead, it will replacing them with unique values preserving the relationship between them but protecting users' anonymity, according to papers filed Monday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

reply to post by JacKatMtn


Thanks for that Jack, that's where i was going..

I realsed that the content might be open for viewing, but the actual users Id etc is private property and the user has allowed youtube to have that data and, therefore, outside influences should, by rights, have to ask the users for any further information as it is not the responsibility of youtube to pass such information on.

That is one small click for man and one giant click for mankind. RIGHT ON YOUTUBE!!

This puts a little more faith in the power of protest for me.
I am still curious to know the reason why viacom, et al. backed down though.