Viacom Allows YouTube to Keep Online Viewing History Private

While the ruling two weeks ago from Judge Louis L. Stanton of the U.S. District Court in New York allows Viacom access to user ID’s and internet IP addresses, the media giant has opted to allow Google-owned YouTube to mask the online viewing history of the material downloaded from that video site.

This is considered a major victory for those who advocate privacy on the internet as paramount. However, Google still has to find a way to better protect that material in the future.

All this flap was brought on by a $1 billion (USD) lawsuit Viacom brought against YouTube for what it alleges to be copyright infringement taking place from the site’s online activity.

“We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users’ viewing histories, and we will not be providing that information,” stated a spokesperson for Netco, a large internet privacy advocacy group. “In addition, Viacom and the plaintiffs had originally demanded access to users’ private videos, our search technology and our video identification technology,” it continued. “Our lawyers strongly opposed each of those demands, and the court sided with us.”

Netco and other privacy watchdog organizations have asked Google and YouTube on more than one occassion to find some way to never retain that kind of data in the first place.

Viacom, for its part, told the Daily Variety that it was pleased that Google would comply with the court’s directive to provide YouTube usage data, which it says “will highlight the way YouTube has used copyrighted material to build its business.”