Google, YouTube and the Good and Bad
I'm not one of those piling on the sack cloth and ashes over today's ruling directing Google to turn YouTube user records over to Viacom. Was the ruling overreaching? Oh, probably without a doubt, but it also justifies the worries we've had about Google's storage of our user information. In fact, it was Google's own "assurances" of privacy issued on the company's own weblog that went into the judge's decision to release this information.
We've been saying just such an event like Viacom suing for the information would happen eventually, except that the entity getting this information could have been much worse. Viacom will learn that I like octopus and squid movies, some music videos, funny cats and other amazing critters, very clever commercials, videos about corporate greed, the environment, and civil rights, and, unfortunately, a video featuring an older woman dying in the waiting room of a hospital while the personnel watched and didn't care. Have I watched any copyrighted material? It's all copyrighted, folks, but have I watched any material that infringes on copyright? Doubtful, but even if I had, I am not going to be suddenly sued by Viacom for copyright infringement, as some of the more hysterical are implying.
However, we don't know how much information Google does have about us. For instance, there is information from searches and other activities that I would prefer to be private. And with Google and Yahoo sharing resources, I can't guarantee that there is such a thing as a "private search", even if I used multiple search engines. Google's complete disregard for our concerns puts us at risk for just such events as this occurring, except now, rather than talking about a hypothetical situation, we have fact staring us in the face: Google's data privacy provisions are anything but private.
Though I am not necessarily disappointed this event happened, I am disappointed that this lawsuit is allowed to continue. The whole point on DMCA is to prevent just such events like this from happening by providing a safe harbor for ISPs. If the judges are going to ignore the DMCA when the corporations file law suits, than perhaps we should begin to ignore the DMCA notices we receive as individuals. Obviously as a law of the land, DMCA is cherry picked to death.
In the end I find it doubtful that Viacom will find its material is the most popular on YouTube, and its draconian devices will only serve to bring into question how inconsistently the DMCA is being applied. I also doubt that Viacom really is that interested in the data—this is more likely a move to get Google to settle rather than continue the court case.
In the meantime, now is the time to set our sights on Google, not Viacom. Google's assurance of our data being kept safe has proven to be false. The question is, what will the company do about it? If the company chooses not to act, what will we do about it?
update
I read the ruling and Google's attempt to protect the users was lukewarm, at best, as compared to the company's protecting its own source code. Google provided no viable defense, cited no laws, and even provided an argument that was easily refuted in the company's own weblog. In addition, it didn't even attempt to put conditions on what happens to that data, including ensuring that the data is not published in any way. All we can see from this ruling, is a company indifferent to the concerns of its users. Amazing.
I disagree, though, with those who say that the source code Google was protecting was unimportant. This is not the Flash source used for the videos; this was Google's own technology the company has implemented in order to look for copyright infringing material when first posted. This, in addition, to portions of its own search code. This is not "trivial" code, and that Google sought to protect it should not be dismissed out of hand.
What peeves me is that Google fought harder to protect it, than us.
second update
Interesting take from danbri on Google's work with social graphs and now much more far reaching something such as a YouTube username and/or IP address can be. Dan provides a listing of information about him that can be derived just from his supposedly pseudo anonymous YouTube login.
Comments
About the extent of Google storage of information, this SeoMoz article was published a few days ago. Looong page.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-evil-side-of-google-exploring-googles-use...
Wow. I was unaware of several of these data gathering techniques. Sophie thanks much for that link.
"The whole point on DMCA is to prevent just such events like this from happening by providing a safe harbor for ISPs"
Not really. Or at least, that's highly contentious. The DMCA take-downs were arguably intended to be the way to handle occasional problems by ISP's. They weren't clearly intended to be the most ever available no matter what the scale of the situation. That is, it's not at all obvious it pre-empts the sort of argument in this case.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
Seth, none of us are lawyers. Even the lawyers ;-)
Interesting. From reading DMCA, one gets the impression the whole purpose of the takedown portion is to prevent lawsuits. However, I imagine a repeat offender situation does push the concept.
I guess we'll find out if this case goes all the way to a ruling, and beyond.
Free is the most expensive thing on the internet, and will continue to cost you until the internet goes dark.
As noted by Sophie above, the link outlining Google's data collection is just an outline.
Google is the original Sharecropper Network, and we are all darkies working the fields, and buying at the company store, keeping our nappy heads down, and singing at the keyboard.
The data is neither impressive in size nor scope. That it was limited to just YouTube is a small victory.
Viacom is getting the work product of an organization, whose primary business is data collection and monetization. This also points out the falsity of the Google claims of anomising user data and 91 day data retention policies, that they so proudly announced after the AOL data mess.
Now that Google has bought Double Click and are integrating that technology, your "private" information can be sold that much faster.
I agree that this all calls into sharp question Google's privacy assurances. I've noticed a lot of people have been dropping YouTube accounts, but I doubt it will make a difference. However, for those that remain, they've been warned.