A U.S. federal judge, Judge Louis L. Stanton of the Southern District of New York, has ordered Google to give Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube.

Judge Stanton made the order in the course of presiding over Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit of Google, in which Viacom is alleging that Google has violated Viacom’s copyright by allowing the unlawful posting of Viacom-owned video clips to YouTube.

According to Google senior litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera, the court has refused to allow Viacom access to YouTube’s search technology or to users’ private videos.

However, there are concerns that the privacy of tens of millions of people could be compromised, with the judge ordering Google to give Viacom the login name and Internet protocol (I.P) address of every YouTube user.

Yes, that includes you and me.

Michael D. Fricklas, Viacom’s general counsel, has indicated that the information will be protected, with the order restricting access to Viacom’s external lawyers, who will only use it for the purposes of Viacom’s case against Google. Viacom partly wants the information to help it estimate the extent to which YouTube’s success has resulted from the popularity of copyrighted clips that have been unlawfully posted to the site.

Sources: Miguel Helft, “Google Told to Turn Over User Data of YouTube”, The New York Times, July 4, 2008, Kenneth Li and Eric Auchard, “Court order on YouTube user data fans privacy fears”, July 4, 2008, Reuters

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