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Google Wins Agreement To Anonymize YouTube Logs
Barence, following up on yesterday's news that Viacom is looking for videos uploaded by Google staff, links to an article at PC Pro, excerpting: "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."
google playing the good guy again. at least they care .....
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
How is making a deal "winning?" I mean, it's a good thing, but from the headline, I thought the judge extracted his head from his colon. "Makes" might be a better verb here... or, if you want to keep the drama, "forges" could work.
I don't think Viacom's goal was to go after the viewers anyway. They need the logs to prove damage of the video uploaders... "See, he uploaded 4 episodes of Spongebob which was viewed 41 million times in total. That is 41 million sales we lost!"
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Viacom gets useless user data that can't be tracked? I'm sure their legal team is beside itself.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Just the fact that such information exists and is stored is scary.
Thank God for "Don't be evil." They better not be.
"!"
Google had to know when it bought YouTube that it was risking attracting a number of lawsuits, the Viacom one being only the first. You can bet if it's successful, the other media giants will be lining up to get their payouts, too. Using Google services is a privacy risk as long as its billions of dollars are attracting high powered lawsuits.
I would send over all the data on paper- via fax machine. The entire database printed out with a size 20 font should only take about 1 year to fax over.
how much data Google actually collects. The amount of data they must collect and analyze could really reveal how we act when "no one" is watching and who knows what kinda of ads or content will be directed at us?
I mean, think about videos that just have a hot frame in the middle to serve as the video's thumbnail? You know what I'm talking about, you /.'ers you.
Seriously though, with a gold pot like this, what (un)respectable advertiser wouldn't want to strike at it?
import system.cool.Sig;
It's a great reminder, once again, that Google actually HAS your username and video watching habits, and can use the info however it wants.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Now if only our judicial branch were required to be knowledgeable about the cases they laid verdicts on this would have happened back in the New York federal courtroom.
This lawsuit and the eBay/Tiffany lawsuit yesterday only means that the courts are only now starting to address how the internet affects traditional businesses models that rely on older concepts of ownership. I remember hearing a speech by the late Douglas Adams on how the internet would change the concepts of property for things like media since no one really "owns" something that can be distributed worldwide in an instant. That was back in 1994.
For eBay/Tiffany the issue was about defending trademarks and brands. eBay argued that they are only a service that bring buyers and sellers together and that they do as much as they can. It is Tiffany's responsibility to enforce their ownership of their brand according to the courts. The problem of enforcement changes when dealing with a worldwide market rather than a local one.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I don't know what Viacom wants with this data, but it's not what they say they want, and it has to be evil. Barfff on them, and boo to Google and the judge for handing it over so easily. Google should appeal this up the wazoo, and most importantly STOP KEEPING SUCH LOGS.
they anonymize it better than the government does... Foiled by Ctl+C
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
Its unfortunate that this data is stored in the first place, and that the judge ordered the info turned over. At least this provides some semblance of privacy for users. It was ridiculous to demand the user names and IP address of everyone. Anonymous data is perfectly valid for their claim. Of course, if Google would stop logging every piece of data they ever receive, this wouldn't be a problem to begin with.
-- Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. -- Albert Einstein
Who saw this and felt a moment of relief? "Whew! No one will know how often I watch Jack/Ianto music vids."
Just for the record? I totally use YouTube to watch user-created videos. I have never used YouTube to get Dr. Who and Torchwood episodes. Never ever. Seriously. And I have never once uploaded a Supernatural episode for anyone overseas. Really.
.. I was afraid somebody would learn just how often I allow myself to get Rick Rolled.
Are they *all* wrong about their business?
Quite possible. That's how an industry dies.
Is that possible? Well... Say, didn't we used to have an auto industry in the U.S.? And why are we bailing out all of these financial institutions all of a sudden?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
I consider giving my data to Google to be the best backup in the world. They never lose anything.
Even if Google refused to release the usernames simply because of moral fiber, this works out very nicely for them. The public will now view them as "the good guys" and this will of course improve business for them. Furthermore, this serves to counteract the awful knowledge that Google keeps these logs at all; consumers will no longer be afraid to use Google's products, since they supposedly will not use their knowledge for "evil".
Thank you Google for trying to stick to your motto and not do evil by protecting our privacy from Viacom, we appreciate it.
"See, he uploaded 4 episodes of Spongebob which was viewed 41 million times in total. That is 41 million sales we lost!"
Then... why would you need the logs for that? Youtube will tell you the # of views right there on the front page. And if one actually one can be bothered to click on the user profile, one can also see which other videos the user has uploaded.
All those violations of piracy must be harmful to the good name of pirates. Arr, it's good to hear that someone is looking out for them matey.
With internet ad income the producers would need to finance everything in advance and then just hope the money trickles in over time. There are also issues with advertising. Does an advertiser prefer to air his ads on certain timeslots on tv OR god knows when on a user screen? People on slashdot seem a bit to fond of new tech to be able to see the many difficulties internet ads bring.
TV is also a onetime affair. Want to watch it again, buy the DVD. If it is always available on the internet, why buy the DVD? If you think ad revenues way up against dvd sales, you are just silly.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Usually in English we say someone "reached an agreement" with someone else since it takes at least two parties to agree.
But on Slashdot where Google can do no wrong, to suggest that Google had agreed with Viacom would tend to equate Google and Viacom or at least put their resepctive positions on a level footing. Since Viacom is the embodiment of evil (they are messing with Google, QED) and Google is pure good ('cause their business plan says so), this can't be.
Ergo, we throw out common language conventions and show that Google had soundly thrashed and generally whupped Viacom-ass and wrung from the bloody corpse of smoldering evil that is Viacom the AGREEMENT, won in battle pitched, a holy talisman of user protection, not unlike the Grail of legend.
If I enter the search term "Jon Stewart", and click on a video and watch it, what does that mean? Did I just watch a large unedited portion of the show on youtube? OR did I just watch somebody's imatation of jon stewart?
The logs cant show either way, and viacom won't know unless they personally watch it.
I mean, really. That's a hell of a big package of baloney to win from a single word.
Thank you, Viacom, for taking a reasonable approach and accepting anonymized logs.
It's a great reminder, once again, that Google actually HAS your username and video watching habits, and can use the info however it wants.
You're right, it's important that everybody know this. I have known this for a while and consider it a reasonable bargain for the services Google provides. Fortunately, there are alternatives for people who chose differently. The question is, "do you trust Yahoo^H^H^H^H^HMSN more?"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Hey Google, anonymize your copy of the logs as well so that this can't happen again!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
SUCH LOGS," as they are described above, are the bread and butter of Google's business model.
Your point is well taken, but may be too narrow in its construction. Let's say Google stores YouTube views like this:
asset_id, username, date, source_ip, useragent
For Viacomm's purposes, one could normalize the log like this:
view_id, asset_id, date
view_id, username, source_ip, useragent
And then Google could give the appropriate log to Viacom while maintaining privacy. For its own purposes, it could 'JOIN' the tables. I'm not telling any secrets here - I'm sure now that they know that a Judge would do such a thing (hard to anticipate) they're hard at work at such a separation.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Here's where I think that Viacom has been caught red handed and trying to fix their public relations problem. The judge granted Viacom's motion and the info was to be handed over to Viacom. Now suddenly Viacom doesn't need this info? What changed? I'm sure the public outcry played a big part in it.
Sounds to me like Viacom's intention all along was to either:
1. Collect this wealth of information, and do some more good old fashioned RIAA lawsuits.
2. Hurt the Youtube name. How many people might no longer watch/post on Youtube because of what they've read about this lawsuit? I'm willing to bet that the people that are less knowledgable about this situation are the same people that'll go to another site that provides the same features(and could face the same exact lawsuits, have to hand over data, etc.) thinking that they are safe because they aren't using Youtube anymore. Maybe if they devalue Youtube enough, they'll try to buy it off of Google for pennies on the dollar.
3. Do #1, and if the shit hit the fan, go to backup plan(#2).
If it's #3, then it doesn't really matter. They've accomplished something, and I'm sure they'll pat themselves on the back for sucessfully accomplishing their goal. I'm willing to bet that sometime soon I'll hear of Viacom's 'brand new' site that competes directly with Youtube(that is assuming there isn't one already that I haven't heard of).
Viacom doesn't have a use for the posters that work at Google that posted coypright videos. Google is protected from being sued by what individuals do. If Viacom has an email from Google management that tells their employee's to post copyright info deliberately, that is different.
Stay tuned. I'm betting money there's more to this story than the public actually knows. I'm interested in seeing what happens from here.
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=f
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:GM
For those who bet big on the SUV, their fate looks grim. The same could be said for those who's business is non digital distribution of information. The writing is on the wall for CD's and DVD's HD, or not.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
into PDFs and then draw blackout boxes over the usernames and IP addresses.
Viacom and friends decide they don't need the logs after all.
companies, these studios want to OWN not only the content, but they want to own the DELIVERY MECHANISM, too.
So, since YouTube is doing well, in contrast to the stodgy studios, they are envious.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Solution: stop using Youtube.
Bittorrent all the way, baby!
Its obvious why they anonymized the IP addresses... Preliminary log analysis showed that Viacom executives and lawyers were the biggest consumers of pr0n.
Is it just me or does this whole case seem a lot like the Napster case a few years back? Greedy company that already makes millions of dollars suing another big company for copy right infringement. Let's just hope people don't start getting prosecuted for uploading videos from MTVs Real World.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Viacom needs to adapt to the new world if it doesn't want to fail like others, the Internet revolution is now running at full throttle speed.
As for Google, they finally have some deep reflexions to do about their logging habits and privacy now that other companies want to know their employees logs only on presumption.
A free world of free speech, respect, privacy and other rights (the real rights that belongs to the people, POWER TO THE PEOPLE!) will triumph in the end.
-Always remember that the majority has not to pay for a few idiots.
What's wrong with Google providing bogus data to Viacom? Is this data even externally audited that Google cant fake the stats, and give Viacom a DVD filled with random bits.
Then again, why does Google need to give Viacom the complete anonymized logs, access time and all? It should simply return a group query result:
Simpsons: 7000000000 hits overall
American Idol: 2 hits overrall
American Idol 2: 1 hit overall
American Idol 3: 0 hits overall
Just a question, what good is the information to Viacom if it is anonymized?
According to the current Googlefight figures, Viacom has a long way to go.
http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=youtube&word2=viacom
-Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"