Google Protect Your Users Or It Will Kill You
Many of us know about how Senior Judge Louis L. Stanton, ordered Google to hand over its YouTube information to Viacom. However, the problem is that the data includes username, IP address and identifiers of all videos viewed on YouTube. Which means that, Viacom can potentially launch a lawsuit against any user who has watched a copyrighted video.
A number of publications have said and quoted Viacom on that they weren’t going to collect all the data they were entitled to under the order. But, I’m not sure if we should believe Viacom on this because, if you remember in 2006 - The AOL search debacle which had users being identified based on a simple list of the search terms they had entered.
Viacom has come out again, and reiterated their statement on that they won’t use the information to go after individuals.
The problem is Google aren’t sure if Viacom will live up to the promise of not going after individuals. This is proven by them being unwilling to hand over employee data and this has led to Googles reputation being on the line. They’ve shown they’re prepared to protect their employees, now it’s time for them to show they will protect its users too.
Because, if they don’t protect their users everyone is going to remember that Google had gathered and stored information without consent, and then gave it away when they were up against some trouble. Which will certainly kill their reputation.
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Melanie said,
Yeah, we’re boycotting Viacom in this house. We don’t download anything off of bit torrents, so we should be in the clear legally on that. We’re in the know of what’s going on and it’s [Viacom] dirty.
I watch videos on Youtube all the time. I don’t really keep an eye on whether or not things are copyrighted, I just watch the videos. I figured YouTube would remove that kind of stuff.
I can see Viacom going after the user who uploaded the video, but not YouTube (because I know they delete the copyrighted videos as they see them) or the users who view the videos because how am I to know… I don’t remember seeing any disclaimers! “If you watch this video, the media will sue you!”
Melanie said,
Wow, that was a long comment, I may even write a blog post about this whole thing! Thanks for the inspiration. I’ll link back here in my post!
dcr said,
I saw a report today that they had come to some sort of agreement and will protect usernames and IP addresses, which is good news if the report is true.
Make Money Schemes said,
Viacom want the user data for the same reason Google collected it in the first place, to advertise to! I don’t think they’d waste their time going after individuals when they could make a killing in other ways with the data.
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