Youtube & Viacom
"A judge in New York has ordered that Google, which owns YouTube, must pass on the details of more than 100 million people - many of them in the UK - to Viacom, the US broadcasting company which 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."
"The court's decision also means that Viacom has succeeded in getting hold of exactly the same sort information that the American government has failed to access in the past."
"In a statement yesterday, Google said it would lobby for the data it provides to be scrubbed clean of personal information.
"We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history. We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order," it said."
So here's the thing. Is there any conceivable reason why it should not be acceptable to Viacom that Google mask the IPs / login details of users before the data is handed over? Ostensibly it's statistical information about usage they have claimed to require so it shouldn't at all be an issue. Otherwise I would say it is quite the issue.
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