Dismissing privacy objections, a federal judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and when.
Lawyers for Google Inc., which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data — equivalent to the text of roughly 12 million books — would be expensive, time-consuming and a threat to users’ privacy.
The database includes information on when each video gets played, which can be used to determine how often a clip is viewed. Attached to each entry is each viewer’s unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer’s computer.
Stanton ruled last week that the plaintiffs had a legitimate need for the information and that the privacy concerns are speculative.
Privacy is a valid concern on the 'net. There are some who believe that if you have nothing to hide then it does not matter if your privacy is violated. Others say that one cannot tell how this data will be used and therefore one needs to be vigilant about privacy. Either way, this ruling is another step on the road to reducing anonymity on the 'net.
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