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Users' privacy wins in YouTube vs Viacom
Personal details can remain anonymous

By Greg Sandoval

Published: Tuesday 15 July 2008

YouTube will be allowed to mask important user information from records it must turn over to Viacom, Google said in a blog post yesterday.

Google said in a statement: "Viacom and the other litigants have backed off their demand for YouTube user viewing histories. We have reached agreement to anonymise the data."

A Viacom spokesman declined to comment.

The move comes after a federal court earlier this month ordered Google-owned YouTube to hand over usernames, IP addresses and viewing histories to Viacom - parent company of MTV. This ignited a controversy over internet privacy and put Viacom on the defensive.

Last year, Viacom accused YouTube of violating its copyright in a $1bn lawsuit. Following the court's order, Viacom was widely criticised for intruding on people's online privacy even though the company had said it never asked to receive personally identifying information.

The agreement, therefore, appears to make everyone a winner. Viacom will look like a responsible internet citizen, Google will no doubt be credited for standing up for internet rights and, most importantly, YouTube users don't have to worry about their privacy.