Chickens coming home to roost for Google/YouTube in Viacom lawsuit

Last week a US court ruled that “Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube”.

Google must divulge YouTube log
Remember those IP addresses which Google was arguing should not be considered personally identifiable information earlier this year?

Leading privacy expert Simon Davies told BBC News that the privacy of millions of YouTube users was threatened.

He said: “The chickens have come home to roost for Google.

“Their arrogance and refusal to listen to friendly advice has resulted in the privacy of tens of millions being placed under threat.”

Mr Davies said privacy campaigners had warned Google for years that IP addresses were personally identifiable information.

Google pledged last year to anonymise IP addresses for search information but it has said nothing about YouTube data.

Mr Davies said: “Governments and organisations are realising that companies like Google have a warehouse full of data. And while that data is stored it is under threat of being used and putting privacy in danger.”

The EFF said: “The Court’s erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube.

Proskauer Rose attorney Louis Solomon said the parties are now debating how to share the YouTube data with individual IP addresses masked, but while still ensuring that different users can be distinguished.

source Why worry about masking them if they aren’t “personally identifiable information”?

Don’t give Google a free pass on data collection, privacy advocates say after YouTube ruling

“Google has a business practice of retaining all the search queries of YouTube viewers,” Rotenberg said. “It is this practice that puts consumer data at risk.”

The end result, he added, “is exactly what were warning about” during a court dispute between Google and the U.S. Department of Justice over Internet search data two years ago.

In that case, the DOJ subpoenaed Google to turn over records on millions of search queries that the government said it needed as part of an effort to defend the Child Online Protection Act from legal challenges. EPIC supported Google’s ultimately successful effort to oppose the subpoena, Rotenberg said. But, he added, the privacy group cautioned even then that as part of the discovery proceedings in criminal or civil cases, Google could at any time be asked to turn over users’ personal data.

Google’s continuing habit of storing highly detailed search data so the information can be analyzed for targeted marketing purposes poses a “real concern” for U.S. residents, Rotenberg said. As the decision in the Viacom case demonstrates, “companies can’t always control who has access to this sort of data,” he noted.

Furthermore, Google’s argument that the IP addresses stored in the YouTube logging database represent personally identifiable information is at odds with the company’s previously stated views on that issue, according to Rotenberg. In cases such as its dispute with the DOJ, Google argued that IP addresses and the other search-related data was practically useless in helping anyone to identify an individual, Rotenberg said. Stanton made the same point in his July 2 ruling in favor of Viacom.

“There is a clear contradiction in Google’s position, that they will assert privacy interests when it is in their favor to do so,” Rotenberg said.