About YouTube and Privacy and Copyrights

A bit of an old story about Google and YouTube and Viacom that I ought to have posted last month. This comes from The Indianapolis Star, Ruling may start troubling privacy trend | IndyStar.com:

"It's a scenario privacy activists have warned about.

'What we're seeing is (that) the theoretical is becoming real world,' said Lauren Weinstein, a computer scientist. 'The more data you've got, the more data that's going to be there as an attractive kind of treasure chest (for) outside parties.'

U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed privacy arguments as speculative.

On July 2, Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs -- which few users even realize exist -- after Viacom and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to prove that their copyright- protected videos for such programs as Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' are more heavily watched than amateur clips.

'This decision makes it absolutely clear that everywhere we go online, we leave tracks, and every piece of information we access online leaves some sort of record,' Urban said.

'As consumers, we should all be aware of the fact that this sensitive information is being collected about us.'"