Viacom to Get YouTube User Histories

Google has been ordered to turn over the viewing history of every YouTube user...to Viacom.

As litigation continues in Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit against Google, a judge has ordered (PDF) Google most turn over the usage histories of every YouTube user to Viacom. The usage logs contain each YouTube user’s login ID, the IP address used to connect to YouTube, as well as a video identifier and a start time.

The court did not order the Google disclose to Viacom its search code, schemas, and other intellectual property, noting that such disclosure—even under a non-disclosure agreement—would cause Google harm since the information carries significant commercial value. The court also ruled Viacom doesn’t get data on privacy videos hosted on YouTube—that is, videos that can only be seen by a user specifically authorized to view it.

Although Viacom won’t get information on private videos, the ordered disclosure of user histories is being decried as a setback for online privacy. “The Court’s erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights,” wrote the EFF’s Kurt Opsahl, “and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. 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.”

Viacom is suing Google for copyright infringement, claiming that Google’s YouTube service is profiting off the illegal distribution of Viacom content (including clips from popular programs like The Daily Show and South Park). Viacom says it had identified more than 160,000 infringing clips which had been viewed a total of 1.5 billion times as of early 2007. Google maintains it offers copyright holders mechanisms to have infringing content taken down from the service. YouTube has long been promising to roll out content filtering technology that prevents infringing material from being uploaded to YouTube in the first place.