Google ordered to hand over YouTube personal info
July 7, 2008
Google is being forced to hand over the personal information of every person who has ever watched a video on the YouTube website as part of the billion-dollar copyright case brought by Viacom.
A judge in New York has ordered that Google, which owns YouTube, must pass on the details of more than 100 million people to the broadcasting company that owns channels including MTV and Nickelodeon. The data will include unique Internet addresses, email accounts and the history of every video watched on the website, giving Viacom’s experts the ability to conduct a detailed examination of the viewing habits of millions of people around the world, raising fresh controversy for Google on privacy.
Catherine Lacavera, Google's senior litigation counsel, said Google was “disappointed” by the ruling.She said Google would ask Viacom to “respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order”.