Viacom General Counsel Michael Fricklas pledged “unequivocally” Thursday not to use the data to learn the real names of YouTube users in order to sue them for uploading unauthorized clips, as the recording industry has done to people who illegally shared music online. The New York-based company said a protective order dictated that only its outside lawyers and experts could access the raw data, and that it could be used solely to make the case against Google. But the ruling, filed late Wednesday by Judge Louis Stanton of U.S. District Court in New York, shocked privacy advocates. They fear a broader effect from Stanton’s finding that so-called Internet Protocol addresses — the unique numbers assigned to each computer or device connected to the Internet — need not be strictly protected because they aren’t tied publicly to individual names.

“It’s a very important privacy moment,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It will remind folks that companies like Google are sitting on top of a lot of personal information that they can’t always control.” Viacom and YouTube are discussing a plan to replace the Internet addresses with codes, a move designed to prevent linking a YouTube log-on name with a particular computer.

If that happens, Google has no plans to appeal, according to people working on the case who demanded anonymity because of the high financial stakes in the litigation.

Google had objected to Viacom’s request for the data, arguing that it would violate users’ privacy. But the Mountain View, Calif.-based company drew fire from privacy groups because it has written elsewhere, when defending its long-term collection of data on users’ Web surfing habits, that Internet addresses aren’t “personally identifiable information.”

In his written order, which covered a number of requests for evidence, Stanton cited a Feb. 22 posting to Google’s official blog saying that in most cases, an Internet Protocol address “without additional information” — typically from an Internet service provider — can’t identify an individual.

That’s not always true, though, and people assuming that their behavior will remain private sometimes use their legal names as log-on handles.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email