Posted
at
4:55 pm
by Eric Fetters It's hard to tell how this will shake out, but a judge's decision today has the potential to embarass some frequent viewers in the YouTube universe.
This is part of Viacom's copyright lawsuit against Google, the owner of YouTube. Viacom doesn't like its shows ending up on YouTube without the media company's permission.
The question is whether people have reason to worry that their penchant for watching bad parody songs or half-naked (or worse) people on YouTube will become public.
Key quote from The Associated Press' story on this: "The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user's real name or e-mail address."
That sounds reassuring. But CNET's editor in chief has explaining why he hopes the ruling isn't part of a new trend to chip away at online privacy rights.