In a ruling that many view as an unofficial infringement of online privacy rights, a US court has ruled that Google is to reveal the viewing habits of any of their users who have ever watched a video on YouTube. This court case was an ongoing battle between Google and Viacom regarding a number of clips on YouTube which Viacom considers are massive copyright infringement.Therefore, Google will have to provide the login details and the IP addresses of all its users. So more than 12 terabytes of information will be turned over after an estimated 1.5 billion views were recorded on material Viacom holds a copyright on.
It is somewhat shocking that a media company will now know what millions of people around the world have watched and what they tend to watch. I know very few people who have not seen a clip that should not have been uploaded to begin with, but YouTube had introduced a filtering tool after Viacom's initial concerns had been expressed, in an attempt to limit the number of clips that should not legally be there.
My main fear is what will happen to YouTube after it is proven that people uploaded and watched copyrighted material. If further action is taken by Viacom we will see a site that has been somewhat independent and a platform for users to express themselves, bought out and become part of a media behemoth. Not to mention the number of additional advertisements that will appear.
Seeing as YouTube recognised its mistake and introduced filtering systems, do you think it is right that our viewing habits and other personal infomartion will become property of Viacom?
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