Viacom, YouTube agree to mask user data
YouTube will be allowed to mask important user information from records it must turn over to Viacom, Google said in a blog post Monday.
"Viacom and the other litigants have backed off their demand for YouTube user viewing histories," Google said in a statement. "We have reached agreement to anonymize the data."
A Viacom spokesman declined to comment.
The move comes after a federal court earlier this month ordered Google's YouTube to hand over usernames, IP addresses, and viewing histories to Viacom, parent company of Comedy Central and MTV. This ignited a controversy over Internet privacy and put Viacom on the defensive.
Last year, Viacom accused Google's YouTube of violating its copyright in a $1 billion lawsuit. Following the court's order, Viacom was widely criticized for intruding on people's online privacy even though the company had said it never asked to receive personally identifying information.
To this point, the agreement appears to make everyone a winner. Viacom will look like a responsible Internet citizen. Google will no doubt be credited for standing up for Internet rights. Most importantly, YouTube users no longer must fear for their privacy.
But this is certainly not the end of this case. Last weekend, two sources with knowledge of the negotiations between the companies told CNET News that Google was refusing to hand over to Viacom information about what videos YouTube employees have watched or uploaded to the site.
The sources said that the information could help Viacom prove that YouTube has turned a blind eye to the piracy on its site. Google is also likely to ask to see similar records about Viacom's employees. That might show that while Viacom's lawyers were demanding YouTube to remove it's videos, Viacom's marketing managers may have been among those that posted them.
The case is not scheduled to go to court until next year at the earliest.
Some of the more interesting legal wrangling left to go is Google's attempt to depose two high-profile Viacom employees: Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report and Jon Stewart of The Daily Show.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg.
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Remember this is a company who is all about making money... the days of their humanitarian college projects are behind them (much like the when they said they though paid ads were BS on the record and then a year later they started adwords), their a business now and going against the law costs unrecoverable amounts of money (just ask MS with their lost billions).
Ciao baby, I won't miss you.
I had to pick any category, but what I am contacting you about has nothing to do with Comedy Central.
What I view online isn't any business of yours. What I view on YouTube isn't any business of yours. All your posturing and trying to force YouTube to disclose who sees what when is make me use proxy software when I visit YouTube. You can rest assured I am not the only person doing this now or before, so your wanting to know user and IP addresses isn't going to give you true details. All your pressuring YouTube has done is made me shop more carefully for media, making sure I do NOT purchase something connected to Viacom. Talking with my wallet is the only way I can protest your actions, and I have encouraged others to do so as well.