Viacom v Google
Google's position on the issue of whether end-point identifiers (the IPv4 addresses of computers that access their content) identify persons, at least it's position as represented on its Are IP Addresses Personal? at its googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com post of February is ...
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. The policy debate about data protection and IP addresses will continue, but it’s important to have a firm grasp of the technical realities of the debate in order to reach conclusions that make sense.Alma Whitten, Software Engineer
... lacking a firm grasp of the technical realities of the debate and reached a conclusion that made sense to Louis L. Stanton, who just happens to be the jurist hearing the case in which Viacom alleges violations of the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.) by Google in the Southern District of New York. Judge Stanton ruled yesterday that Google must provide Viacom:
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
Something to remember everytime you click on a YouTube embed (I'm going to take all of them out of our archives, cause people still do read Wampum, not just robots), or engage in happy happy social networking, or go kumbaya! with the Unity Pony posse, who look to be an partially disrobed and hairy crowd chasing an inelegantly naked person mounted on a lame horse.
Here's the ruling: Viacom v Google
Oblig note: I contribute to the W3C's PLING list, the successor to the W3C's Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Project, to which I was a contributor, and in particular, on the very issue of ipv4 address being personal data or tending to identify a person or personally identifying information or ... I advocated that even three out of four octets of an ipv4 address was sufficient to identify an individual.
Obviously, I think data correlation is possible. The problem is not the instantaneous present, its the correlates past, present, and future. But Google bought DoubleClick, and I worked for Engage, the less successful, non-deterministic, aggregate behavior profiling on-line ad network company.
Anyway, all your data is Viacom's, and anyone else they shop it too. Click on dudes!
Comments
I'm not sure punishing Google is the right way to follow this up. They could have not gone to court at all, and just rolled over. Are they able to appeal the ruling?
Posted by: me | July 8, 2008 05:09 AM