US court orders Google to hand over user records
A US court has ruled that Google must hand over to Viacom its log of every person who has ever watched a video clip on YouTube. According to the BBC:
The log …. contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video file details. Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, has alleged that YouTube is guilty of massive copyright infringement. When it initiated legal action in March 2007 the firm said it had identified about 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes on the website, which had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.
In general, I’m inclined towards Viacom’s side in the case, since Google will earn money from showing these clips, effectively getting a free ride on Viacom’s IP. However, putting that to one side, this court ruling raises massive issues of personal privacy. Why does the court or Viacom need to know who watched the clips? Surely a simple count of video viewings would suffice, for the purposes of the claim?
The US Administration’s ever-greater surveillance and access powers (eg. copying your laptop files if you pass through US airport transit lounges) will be bolstered by this court ruling. Yet the US risks losing a large part of the expanding global market for services delivered over the internet. Already various governments insist that their records are only hosted and backed up “at home”. Corporations and private citizens are likely to do so as well, if this intrusive trend continues.
Software-as-a-Service providers should consider how this might affect their architectures and delivery platforms. Separate data centres in every nation? What about multinational organisations? Tricky stuff to fix after the system goes live. Do you just give up on an international offering? Or will this stifle SaaS and the internet?
Maybe there’s an opportunity for offshore data centres in reputable countries where privacy is guaranteed, say on a similar level to the anti-money laundering access which even Swiss banks have to concede. You can’t go on fishing expeditions, you need justifiable cause to inspect the records, with privacy protected by the rule of law.
Or maybe the argument that “if you’ve done nothing to be ashamed of, you’ve got nothing to worry about” will mean most customers won’t worry about it, and this ever-increasing intrusion will just be accepted.
Meantime, here’s the #1 featured video on YouTube today. Somehow it felt appropriate. Let’s hope it’s legal!
July 5th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Despite the information containing log in IDs and computer IP addresses, I fail to see how such a move is a “massive issue of personal privacy.” I dont see this set of information informing anyone of the person to whom sites were visited, but rather the computer, and thus issues of personal privacy are in my opinion minimal. It must to also be remembered that such a move in the United States of America is not the first instance of an invasion of privacy. Rather it seems that the US is very liberal to some extent to issues such as privacy. One need not look farther than the controversial but strangely POPULAR patriot act.
If we set up the notion that the US, in its aim to acknowledge the first amendment, tends to be liberal with privacy issues, than arguably such a move by the courts is not surprising.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
The logs include your own computer’s IP address. Most PCs have only one user (at work) or a small but fixed group of users (at home). Studies of Google search histories made available for academic research have already been able identify people from them, resulting in calls for Google to delete search logs. Or you just track other internet application where people reveal their address and their identity (through access to other websites, email, etc) and match the IP addresses.
The US may be “liberal” as you put it (I’d say illiberal but tolerant) but many others are not, and the US has been somewhat cavalier with the rights of non-citizens.