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Shouldn't have clicked on that "Hot highschool girl takes off top" video, you perv... Now explain yourself to viacom, cuz they know all about that, and all the other videos you ever watched on youtube.
Edit: It appears, see my second post, that viacom even knows if you've ever watched, or even loaded (encountered an embeded youtube vid in a post you read here- even if you didn't even click on it), a youtube vid on the shroomery, or any other site.
Looks like they know what site you came from, what site you were on (shroomery) and can connect you with any other sites you've been on that had a youtube-embedded video you may or may not have watched. Combined with your IP address and what videos you've watched on youtube proper, this is some very powerful information.
Anyone else see this as a bit disturbing? I don't know what the legal merits of the decision are, but I do know that discovery orders are almost never reviewable on appeal until after the case has been decided, which means this order will almost certainly be complied with unless youtube settles or obtains a modified order.
What I don't get is why the need for all the data? What is the legitimate need? Can't youtube just assign unique identifiers to the identifiable information? Did the judge even realize what he was ordering?
Just think of how this information could be used. Youtube is very popular. Viacom could potentially pick the next president or get people fired from their jobs. Release the right logs, and suddenly people don't look too hot.
I have to ask... This judge is over 80 years old... Do you think he knows when ordering "all information" that that includes referer info, IP's, and other powerful data? Hell, do you think he knows how to use a computer? (props for anyone that can find a picture of the guy, I'm curious what he looks like)
Now the story:
Quote: Google ordered to give YouTube user data to Viacom
17 hours ago
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — A US judge has ordered Google to expose to Viacom the video-viewing habits of everyone who has ever used YouTube in a decision condemned by the Internet giant and privacy advocates.
US District Court Judge Louis Stanton backed Viacom's request for data on which YouTube users watch which videos on the website in order to support its case in a billion-dollar copyright lawsuit against Google.
Viacom charges Google, which bought YouTube in 2006, acts as a willing accomplice to Internet users who put clips of Viacom's copyrighted television programs on the popular video-sharing website.
"We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history," Google senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera told AFP in an email Thursday.
Stanton brushed aside privacy concerns on Tuesday while ordering Google to give Viacom log-in names of YouTube users and Internet protocol (IP) addresses identifying which computers they used for viewing videos.
Stanton contends that Viacom needs more than pseudonyms and IP numbers that are tantamount to addresses on the Internet to identify individual YouTube users.
Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kurt Opsahl called the court's ruling a significant reversal to privacy rights.
The judge's ruling ignores US federal law as well as a "fiasco" that resulted after America Online gave researchers what it thought was anonymous search data, Opsahl said.
People's online searches can unintentionally divulge identities even without accompanying onscreen nicknames or IP addresses, according to Opsahl.
"The court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube," he said.
"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 issued a statement Thursday saying it is only out to bolster its case against Google and not to expose or pursue viewers of copyrighted videos.
"Any information that we or our outside advisors obtain will be used exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against YouTube and Google," Viacom said.
"It will be handled subject to a court protective order and in a highly confidential manner."
In what Google claims as a partial victory, Stanton denied Viacom's request to get its hands on secret source code used in YouTube video searches as well as for Internet searches.
Stanton also refused a Viacom request to order Google to provide access to the videos YouTube users store in private YouTube files.
Google lawyers opposed each of the Viacom requests, which were made in a "discovery" evidence-gathering phase of a lawsuit filed in March of last year in US District Court in New York state.
"We are pleased the court put some limits on discovery, including refusing to allow Viacom to access users' private videos and our search technology," Lacavera said.
"We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymize the logs before producing them under the court's order."
Google decries the lawsuit as an attack on the underpinnings of the Internet, while Viacom argues that the California-based Internet search colossus and especially its subsidiary YouTube are involved in "massive" copyright infringement.
The Viacom lawsuit has been merged with similar civil litigation being pursued by the Premier League of England's Football Association, which says soccer game clips are routinely posted on YouTube without authorization.
Google shields itself with 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, US legislation that says Internet firms are not responsible for what Internet users put on websites.
Industry insiders suspect Viacom is using the lawsuit as a negotiating tactic and has no intention of taking the matter to trial.
Viacom's goal could be to reach into Google's deep pockets for royalties for videos played on YouTube.
Viacom, however, said it had no choice but to sue after "a great deal of unproductive negotiation" failed to curtail YouTube's "unlawful business model."
The Viacom stable includes Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and more than 130 other television networks around the world, plus an array of websites.
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: johnm214] #8594399 - 07/04/08 09:56 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Why can I not go for one fucking day without getting pissed off at our government?
-------------------- "The choiceless truth of who you are is revealed to be permanently here permeating everything. Not a thing and not separate from anything."--Gaganji "Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream." "My karma ran over my dogma!"
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: johnm214] #8594422 - 07/04/08 10:11 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)
So guess what? Viacom knows you viewed a youtube video on the shroomery, and has your IP address, presuming the order isn't altered. They also know every video you watched on youtube and what website you came from or saw it on (like the shroomery). They presumably know even the videos you didn't watch, and those you simply loaded cuz they were embedded on the page, like people do here. Why does viacom need that info? Doesn't matter, they got it.
From the court order, an interesting and very broad portion, ordered by a judge born in 1927, who may or may not know what the fuck html, flash, a referer log, or any of the other things this order covers is. Tech people, am I correct in my assesment in the above? Does viacom now know what videos you've watched on youtube embedded in a shroomery post, or even videos that were embedded in a youtube post that you didn't even click on?
Quote:
For the reasons set forth above:
(4) The motion to compel production of all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website is granted;
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: johnm214] #8594527 - 07/04/08 11:08 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Quote: Tech people, am I correct in my assesment in the above? Does viacom now know what videos you've watched on youtube embedded in a shroomery post, or even videos that were embedded in a youtube post that you didn't even click on?
It kind of looks like that, yeah...
Quote: 4. Video-Related Data from the Logging Database Defendants' "Logging" database contains, for each instance a video is watched, the unique "login ID" of the user who watched it, the time when the user started to watch the video, the internet protocol address other devices connected to the internet use to identify the user's computer ("IP address"), and the identifier for the video. [...] Defendants argue that the data should not be disclosed because of the users' privacy concerns, saying that "Plaintiffs would likely be able to determine the viewing and video uploading habits of YouTube's users based on the user's login ID and the user's IP address" (Do Decl. ¶ 16).
But defendants cite no authority barring them from disclosing such information in civil discovery proceedings, and their privacy concerns are speculative. Defendants do not refute that the "login ID is an anonymous pseudonym that users create for themselves when they sign up with YouTube" which without more "cannot identify specific individuals" (Pls.' Reply 44), and Google has elsewhere stated:
We [...] are strong supporters of the idea that data protection laws should apply to any data that could identify you. The reality is though that in most cases, an IP address without additional information cannot.
Therefore, the motion to compel production of all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website is granted.
It's annoying when a technologically illiterate judge dismisses privacy concerns as "speculative" when there's really nothing to speculate about. Despite Google's spin, with an ISP's cooperation an IP address can easily be traced to a specific customer. And as the AOL search term debacle demonstrated, even without IPs you can still employ good old fashioned detective work and discover a lot about an individual if you know their browsing history. So now we all have to trust Viacom to be benevolent with the information, and to employ adequate security procedures so the list doesn't end up on Wikileaks. And this isn't a question of national security, it's a question of profits. I hope Google appeals.
P.S. If you have the "how to handle embedded offsite resources" option in your display preferences set to "retrieve offsite resources through a web-based proxy", your browsing history on this site is protected at least. Maybe that feature isn't just for the paranoid after all...
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: johnm214] #8594558 - 07/04/08 11:22 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)
You're that bored that you have play paranoid attention whore with this type of thing?
Quote:
Stanton contends that Viacom needs more than pseudonyms and IP numbers that are tantamount to addresses on the Internet to identify individual YouTube users.
I don't watch most videos posted here because they don't work through my proxy. I usually use one listed here http://www.proxyswarm.com/ so hopefully my ISP won't know I associate with people like you here. I have a dynamic IP address that I check now and then. It changes from time to time. If you looked it up you would find that its in the range that my ISP assigns to its subscribers. Real criminals deny everything and even use their friends' and family members' identities to evade being caught. An IP address can't be positively linked to a person. What if more than one person lives or works where the computer is? If someone got my IP address they would have to find out who I am through my ISP. The name on the account is that of a man who died 9 years ago. I've been paying the bill ever since. They can find out who has been paying the bill by who writes the checks. Maybe that would confuse them too much, their brains would freeze up and they wouldn't know what to do. What if the ISP didn't have all the logs of where and when the dynamic IP addresses were assigned?
How do you know that the shroomery isn't run by the DEA?
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: Luddite] #8594590 - 07/04/08 11:35 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Not everyone has the foresight to sign up for internet service under the name of a dead guy. And by your own admission it's an exercise in futility, all they have to do to establish your identity is follow the money. While I agree in theory that "an IP address can't be positively linked to a person", the many recent judgments against file sharers (including those who claimed to have open access points) should be enough to demonstrate that this fine point has little practical significance in today's court of law.
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: Ythan] #8594789 - 07/04/08 12:42 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Quote: Luddite said: You're that bored that you have play paranoid attention whore with this type of thing?
Real criminals deny everything and even use their friends' and family members' identities to evade being caught. An IP address can't be positively linked to a person. What if more than one person lives or works where the computer is? If someone got my IP address they would have to find out who I am through my ISP. The name on the account is that of a man who died 9 years ago. I've been paying the bill ever since. They can find out who has been paying the bill by who writes the checks. Maybe that would confuse them too much, their brains would freeze up and they wouldn't know what to do. What if the ISP didn't have all the logs of where and when the dynamic IP addresses were assigned?
How do you know that the shroomery isn't run by the DEA?
1. I don't know the shroomery isn't run by the DEA, and while I'd be disapointed, it wouldn't affect my life at all.
2. I understand that you can take measures to anonymize yourself beyond the norm. I made this post for people like me that don't do so and what I presume are others.
I don't get your post. Yes you could have prevented this from impacting you. So what?
I think its a silly decision, and the judge gave too little weight to privacy concerns, especially since there was no need for the privacy-sensitive information, that I've seen so far.
This was about policy, the decision, and the outrage that many would feel that personal information is being disclosed for what seems like no reason, as unique random identifiers could have been substituted for IP's without any loss of utility to the plaintiffs.
You never fail to be provactive, but it seems pretty needless in this case. This won't affect me in the least- I just think its a poor decision, and I suspect the underlying action is bullshit anyways.
I'd also observe you seem to be far more confident in the need to positivly identify yourself as the user of that IP. Under some theories you could be liable for the infringment for whoever uses the account you've established, and even if we presume that you must be identified, this is not a high burden.
Once its established that you own the account or are the main user, that's pretty much it, and its your burden to prove it wasn't you. If we're talking about civil law here, there is no high and mighty notion of doubt. They prove the account infringed and its yours, that's likely good enough for a jury or a judge. You establish you most likely did it, not that you provably did it, and your liable. Your hypotheticals aside, save if for the criminal case- in which it likely still will be of muted import.
It should be noted that all this bullshit also only matters in court. When people associate you with damaging behavior, its not like you'll get to present expert testimony to the court of public opinion.
Quote:
It's annoying when a technologically illiterate judge dismisses privacy concerns as "speculative" when there's really nothing to speculate about. Despite Google's spin, with an ISP's cooperation an IP address can easily be traced to a specific customer. And as the AOL search term debacle demonstrated, even without IPs you can still employ good old fashioned detective work and discover a lot about an individual if you know their browsing history. So now we all have to trust Viacom to be benevolent with the information, and to employ adequate security procedures so the list doesn't end up on Wikileaks. And this isn't a question of national security, it's a question of profits. I hope Google appeals.
yep, thanks for the confirmation. The problem is the users don't really have a representative in this case. I guess people could intevene, but I don't know if that will occur.
I understand that by giving information to youtube you acknowledge and anticipate, or should, that they could disclose the infromation, but its still shocking and disapointing.
And its more than just individuals, though your right about being able to identify IP's through social engineering or retriveing public data, communicating with telecoms, or more mischeivious methods.
What of the companies or larger entities that have their own block of IP's? They have no protection. I understand there is no way to establish the end user wihtout other methods, but that doesn't matter. The entity shouldn't have information disclosed without need, and this appears to have happened.
What if someone at ebay decided to search for porn all day at work? While the company has the right to know that, does viacom? And presuming the infroamtion isn't handled discretely, that infroamtion could harm ebay's reputation.
My problem is that this information wasn't neccesary and is more than a theoretical privacy risk, as the judge dismissively puts it.
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Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: johnm214] #8595716 - 07/04/08 06:33 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: Seuss] #8595998 - 07/04/08 08:58 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: automan] #8596040 - 07/04/08 09:25 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)
1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: Diploid] #8596071 - 07/04/08 09:40 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: automan] #8596080 - 07/04/08 09:47 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)
1. With regard to appeal, likely no dice. Their is no right to appeal discovery orders by private litigants, and the appeal is totally at the discretion of the appellate court. As I recall, the trial judge may certify the issue, I think- don't quote me, for interlocutory appeal and this helps, or the cour tof appeals may decide to hear it. I believe they only hear appeals of discvoery matters when there is a due process issue with complying with the order, i.e. the order is so burdensome it amounts to a denial of due process, such as if the order costs more to comply with than the liability under and reasonable set of provable facts and the defendant did not create the costly circumstance himself.
2. I just thought of something about how people could challenge this.
You have a contractual relationship with youtube, likely , through their privacy policy. As the court order violates this contract, presumably, arguendo here, the court interfered with a private contract. Therefore, as a matter of due process, you have a right to be heard on the matter if you seek to intervene.
I believe you'd have to establish that you had an enfocable right to have youtube act in a certain way, the judge's order infringes upon that right, and you'd suffer damages as a result.
I think the first 2 are likely easily proven, but I don't know about the last one. Seems you'd have to allege the data will not be handled properly or that you'll suffer damage jsut by having viacom be aware of it. Probably difficult.
Still, I wonder what the degree of damage must be? This shit is coming out of my head, so could be very wrong, but I know third parties can intervene in cases like this, just fuzy on the standing issue- if there is no way you could be harmed by the order itself, you likely don't have standing to intervene.
Still, maybe the EFF will seek to intervene on behalf of a class of folks and seek a protective order, presuming one hasn't allready been established, seeking to prevent viacom from releasing or using the data in ways other than for the determination of the suit's merits, and requiring the IP addresses to be filed under seal if they are filed.
They could also try to get Youtube bound to alter the identifiying information (IP addresses et cet) with unique identifiers per IP, so the plaintiffs would still have the ability to match IP with activity, they just wouldn't know the IP in particular. Since they're not suing the users, this infroamtion is not needed, I'd imagine, and they could show cause to reveal it for any particular person anyways. The IP's could even just be truncated or analyzed per an acceptable method and this data incorporated into the unique identifier substitute, perhaps identifying unique IP's, location presumably, and the ISP/ ISP and owner of the reserved IP's if applicable.
What do you guys think? Who will do it? Ythan, I pick you. File a motion to intervene and for a protective order!
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: johnm214] #8637243 - 07/15/08 11:06 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)
Google wins agreement to anonymise YouTube logs 8:47AM, Tuesday 15th July 2008
Google and Viacom have reached a deal to protect the privacy of millions of YouTube watchers.
Earlier this month, a New York federal judge ordered Google to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom and other plaintiffs to help them prepare a confidential study of what they argue are vast piracy violations on the video-sharing site.
Google claims it had now agreed to provide plaintiffs' attorneys with a version of a massive viewership database that blanks out YouTube usernames and IP addresses that could be used to identify individual video watchers.
"We have reached agreement with Viacom and the class action group [led by the English Football Assocation]," Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes claims. "They have agreed to let us anonymise YouTube user data."
Yesterday, it was claimed that Viacom wanted details of what videos had been watched and uploaded by Google staff in a bid to prove the company's staff were aware of illegal material being uploaded on to the site.
In a legal stipulation agreed to by attorneys for all major parties in the case, the sides agreed that the new data privacy agreement did not cover employees and that they would work out how to share this data separately in coming weeks.
Viacom, owner of movie studio Paramount and MTV Networks, requested the information as part of its $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube and its deep-pocketed parent, Google.
Judge Louis Stanton of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Google on 1 July to turn over as evidence a database with usernames of YouTube viewers, what videos they watched when, and users' IP addresses.
Privacy activists from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups argued in response that the order "threatens to expose deeply private information" and violated the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 law passed after Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental habits were revealed.
Viacom said at the time that it needed the data to demonstrate video piracy patterns that are the heart of its case against YouTube. But it sought to diffuse privacy fears, saying it had no interest in identifying individual users.
Re: Ever used Youtube? Court awards VIACOM ALL data ever collected by youtube on user's habits [Re: johnm214] #8697137 - 07/29/08 11:59 AM (15 years, 9 months ago)
Quote: johnm214 said: What I don't get is why the need for all the data? What is the legitimate need? Can't youtube just assign unique identifiers to the identifiable information? Did the judge even realize what he was ordering?
It's to protect you from terrorism! Terrorists have great power over those internets (especially terrorists like Ron Paul). Only terrorists would want privacy. If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't be worried. Why do you hate freedom?
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