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A New York judge has ordered Google to supply the details of more than 100 million people to Viacom
A New York judge has ordered Google to supply the details of more than 100 million people to Viacom to aid the broadcasting company in gathering evidence for its court case against YouTube.
Currently Google and Viacom are in the midst of a billion dollar court battle. The companies are at loggerheads because Viacom believes Google has not done enough to prevent piracy or the infringement of copyright material on its YouTube website. Despite Google introducing further safeguards against delinquency and the removal of infringing material, Viacom believes that Google has not gone far enough to safe guard their interests – and mounted a suit last March.
Judge Louis Stanton, who is presiding over the court case has said that the data, which will include unique internet addresses, email accounts and the history of every video watched on the website, is needed in order for for Viacom to build its case.
While Google fears the cost of producing such logs will be exorbitant, Civil libertarians are up in arms for other reasons:
“The court’s erroneous ruling is a setback to privacy rights,” said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group. “We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users.”
The court’s decision also means that Viacom has succeeded in getting hold of the same information that the American Government has failed to access in the past.
Google said it would lobby for the data it provides to be scrubbed clean of personal information.
Source:
SMH tech news
