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Google Wins Agreement To Anonymize YouTube Logs

Posted by timothy on from the have-in-my-hand-a-list dept.

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."

27 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. subject by amnezick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    google playing the good guy again. at least they care .....

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    1. Re:subject by apathy+maybe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe if they hadn't have kept all the information they wouldn't need to have that fight in the first place...

      I doubt they really care about anything except their image. "Yeah, we are the good guys", if they were really good they would have anonymised the information within days of them recording it.

      Remember, information comes in, statistics are collected, raw information disappears. This time Google "won", but next time it might be the CIA or another nasty agency.

      --
      I wank in the shower.
    2. Re:subject by Smidge204 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IANAL but isn't there some recent laws/legal precedence that would actually expose them to MORE trouble if they didn't keep those records?

      A story of a certain torrent site comes to mind...
      =Smidge=

    3. Re:subject by MacDork · · Score: 4, Interesting

      at least they care .....

      They care about themselves. Had Viacom gotten the IP logs, they could have proven Google staff was party to the infringement. I doubt user welfare was on their mind...

    4. Re:subject by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Informative

      IANAL but isn't there some recent laws/legal precedence that would actually expose them to MORE trouble if they didn't keep those records?

      No, there was a recent ruling that a torrent site had to start keeping records in response to a subpoena.

      IANAL, but I believe the issues was as follows. Basically, a subpoena cannot be used to force you to start keeping records you otherwise would not (otherwise, imagine the subpoenas over MS's coffee drank allocated to line of code), it can only force you to retain records you create anyway. The torrent site claimed that they never kept records. The plantiff claimed that they kept records in RAM for the purpose of actually running the torrent, and that recording those logs counted as a reasonable imposition for a subpoena.

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  2. Not as it seems by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Not as it seems by cliffski · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You keep insisting that you hold the secret to profitability for viacom, by repeatedly insisting that all their content should be made freely available on the web paid for by adverts.
      Seriously, if you think this is such an awesome idea, why isn't every movie and TV producer on earth submitting their content to youtube?

      Are they *all* wrong about their business?

      --
      DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
    2. Re:Not as it seems by nine-times · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well that was their stated intention, at least. Many people have suspected that they wanted to do more with it, since they were asking for the record of every view of every movie, including usernames and addresses. That seems like a lot of info just to demonstrate that a movie had been viewed many times. Doesn't YouTube publicly display the number of views for each movie anyway?

      But personally, I'd sooner be suspicious that this is a ploy to get access to Google's data as market research. If you're a media company looking for sources of data to mine, getting Google's YouTube records is hitting the jackpot.

    3. Re:Not as it seems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      why isn't every movie and TV producer on earth submitting their content to youtube?

      Why waste the time when you know someone else will do it for you?

    4. Re:Not as it seems by snl2587 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Are they *all* wrong about their business?

      Quite possible. That's how an industry dies.

    5. Re:Not as it seems by aztektum · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They already release much of it for free with adverts on the tele. Wtf is the difference?

      --
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      No sig for you!!
    6. Re:Not as it seems by hkmarks · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's not always about money. Sometimes it's about power. And then women.

      Or so I've heard.

    7. Re:Not as it seems by cathars1s · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That, or everyone breaking the law and not paying for their product. That will do it too.

      /just sayin

    8. Re:Not as it seems by gyranthir · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, they wanted the information to attempt to completely take down youtube.

      As they wanted to identify Youtube employees as uploaders of copyrighted content, youtube would lose it's ISP Safeharbor granted to them based on the DMCA ISP Safeharbor rules about illegal or copyrighted content on ISP's servers (they are not responsible for it, and do not have to proactively search for it).

      If they would lose that safeharbor clause they would be gone within weeks.

      Also they stated they weren't planning on going after individual users, but weren't going to rule it out..... Sound familiar? RIAA!!!!.

    9. Re:Not as it seems by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Any law being broken by "everyone" isn't really a good law in the first place. Laws are a contract that society enforces against itself, and if the vast majority of a society doesn't agree with a law then there's no reason for it to exist at all.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  3. Re:Okay then, what's the point? by JoshJ · · Score: 4, Informative

    The point is that Viacom can find out that "the same person that viewed video X that infringes our copyright also viewed fifteen other videos that infringe our copyright; and he only looked at two that do not". (Or at least, that's what Viacom is hoping to find- that users view piles of Viacom-copyrighted videos and very little in the way of original content.)

    --
    Care about privacy? Read this!
  4. Yikes... by trisweb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just the fact that such information exists and is stored is scary.

    Thank God for "Don't be evil." They better not be.

    --
    "!"
  5. Reminder: this does not preserve your privacy by Dekortage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    $nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
    1. Re:Reminder: this does not preserve your privacy by bravecanadian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree.

      I think it is funny how everyone is up in arms when Viacom might have gotten their hands on it.. and funny now that everything thinks that Google is the "good guy" for coming to an agreement with Viacom to anonymize the data.

      Meanwhile glossing over the fact that Google has and continues to use the very data they were so worried about.. every day to target ads and whatever other purposes they have or find in the future for it.

    2. Re:Reminder: this does not preserve your privacy by Chyeld · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it's funny how people get upset over the idea that there are those of us who are OK with a company with a track record of Google's having more access to information on how we use their free services than we are OK with a company with the track record of Viacom or any other 'big media' having access to information on how we use someone else's services.

      Meanwhile glossing over the fact that the majority of the information Google keeps isn't really that personally identifying and helps them actually provide those free services in the first place.

    3. Re:Reminder: this does not preserve your privacy by jeffasselin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The difference I see is that when you go to YouTube or other Google services, you have a tacit understanding and agreement with Google that they will have access to this data, and you can read their privacy terms and agree to them when you use their services.

      You certainly don't expect other companies to also have that access.

      --
      If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
  6. Why does Viacom want all those logs? by phr1 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    and why did the judge go along with it? They claim they want to see what percentage of users are looking at unauthorized uploads of copyrighted videos. But they could/should/would do that with a statistical sample, not a full dump of the entire log. Like if you wanted to check out an allegation that 50 million Americans have portraits of Osama bin Laden sewn into their underwear, you would not inspect the underwear of every single American. You'd look at a few thousand selected at random and figure out the percentage. Even when the FBI wanted a look at Google search patterns, they only wanted a few million searches, not the billions that Google has stashed. And Google resisted that.

    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.

  7. Re:Okay then, what's the point? by Khaed · · Score: 5, Funny

    The point is that Viacom can find out that "the same person that viewed video X that infringes our copyright also viewed fifteen other videos that infringe our copyright; and he only looked at two that do not".

    I find it hilarious that they're going to pay someone to look at all these lines.

    I imagine it won't be a geek or someone with knowledge of the culture. And I can imagine the following moment.

    The guy/girl sets down a sheet of paper, rubs the bridge of their nose, and says, out loud: "Jesus Christ, when did Rick Astly get so popular?"

  8. Payment in advance by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Informative
    TV stations BUY tv programs and pay for them in hard cash BEFORE they are aired. This makes it fairly easy to do your balance book if you produce content. Hell, most content is even PAID before it is ever produced. What happens is that you pitch an idea, get money to produce a pilot. Show the pilot and get money to produce a season. It is the way the industry works.

    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.

    --

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    1. Re:Payment in advance by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With internet ad income the producers would need to finance everything in advance and then just hope the money trickles in over time.

      Product placement. Ford and Coca-Cola sponsor "American Idol" and their products are worked into the show all over the place. I don't particularly care for blatant placements 20 times a minute, but that's the only form of advertising that can't be easily skipped.

      Does an advertiser prefer to air his ads on certain timeslots on tv OR god knows when on a user screen?

      Magazines seem to have figured out how to handle that dealbreaker.

      The bigger point is that Viacom and their ilk have to start getting creative. Even if they wipe YouTube clean, there's always TPB. Close it down and there'll be an AllOfTv.ro (there's already a .ru today). Square things up with eastern Europe and Asia and some guy in Venezuela will pick up the slack. The cat is out of the bag. It's decided. People will watch TV over the Internet, and it's impossible at this point to go back. The only question is whether media will figure out a way to profit or keep fighting until their doors close for the last time.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  9. What can these logs prove? by tiananmen+tank+man · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Risks of being worth a fortune by fumblebruschi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As I understand it, Google bought Youtube *specifically because* Viacom was going to sue. Youtube didn't have the resources to fight a lawsuit from Viacom, so they would have had to settle and the most likely outcome would be that Viacom would end up owning Youtube's technology (which they would shelve) and patents (which they would use to stop other companies, Google included, from developing a Youtube equivalent.) So Google bought Youtube in order that Viacom would have to sue Google, which does have the resources to fight the lawsuit (also, presumably, Google thinks it can win it) and Google will wind up owning the technology and free from patent interference.