As Electronic Frontier Foundation reported July 2, 2008 (Court Ruling Will Expose Viewing Habits of YouTube Users), the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled in favor of Viacom, and against Google/YouTube, in a hugely important internet privacy case.
The district court's ruling, among other things, instructs Google to provide Viacom with YouTube user log-in information, including the user IP address (internet protocol address - your computer address), which has previously been held private.
The ruling, EFF and others suggest, is a major rebuke of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) (18 U.S.C. § 2710). The court, however, states that it dismissed Google's VPPA argument, because Google cited "no authority" to bar such disclosure of log-in information in civil proceedings.
Regardless, the NY district court ruling applies broadly to YouTube users. Quoting the district court opinion, EFF reports that the ruling applies to:
"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."
In other words, Google must provide all log-in ID information, for all YouTube users, which includes the IP address of the user. This also includes the content, time, and duration of all video views.
Here are court documents pertaining to the case, courtesy of justia.com (Viacom v. Google litigation), as well as the July 1 order from the District Court/Southern District of New York (ordered). An appeal is certain.
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