The Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Viewer Records

Re: Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Viewer Records

Stephen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:07:32 -0000

This is a complete invasion of privacy on the part of Viacom and our user information doesn’t have any relevance to their billion dollar lawsuit against Google. Google should be able to anatomize the user information before handing over 12 terabytes of personal information so my privacy and the privacy of millions like me are protected. I have a campaign that will force Viacom to allow Google/YouTube to protect us or 100,000 will boycott Viacom and all its subsidiaries: https://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/stop-viacom-...

Re: Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Viewer Records

Japhet — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 08:45:54 -0000

Here's the real question: What is Google doing with all of this personal data in the first place? And why do they need it? The release of this data today is being done in a very controlled, Chinese Wall, fashion.

What happens tomorrow when some massive Google data breach, a disgruntled employee perhaps, splashes this data all over the web, or uses it for identity theft.

I trust a court order to release this data in a tightly controlled way under strict contempt of court penalties, far more than I trust some data doo-dah at Mountain View. I'm just sayin...

Re: Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Viewer Records

Timon — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:38:20 -0000

Well given that Arrington is a distinguished and experienced lawyer from Stanford (at Berkeley we used to say that the worst thing about rival Stanford was that we didn't get in) he probably is as aware of the legal niceties as anyone who has ever read this blog. The idea that one can be "correct" or "incorrect" "as a legal matter" is so ridiculous that you have to spend years in law school to be brainwashed into it, as if the advocates for Heller would have been more or less correct depending on how Kennedy woke up the morning he broke the tie. In this case, an elderly and ignorant judge issued a ruling in which he claimed, to take one howler, that a youtube id is anonymous and pseudonymous. Mine isn't. Not to say Arrington isn't pompous and annoying, but the pomposity of judges (hint: never invite a judge to speak anywhere, they will drone interminably and be surprised no one laughs, they are used to pathetically sycophantic lawyers), is an order of magnitude greater than the most obnoxious tech blogger. It would have been much better, to take one off the cuff solution, for the judge to require hashed ip addresses and user id's -- but then what are the odds that that would occur to someone totally innocent of computers? It isn't, but should be, permissible for judges to issue rulings to the effect of: I really know nothing about this subject, we will need input from someone else, and to stop pretending that knowledge of the law is an adequate substitute for knowledge of the actual thing I am supposed to be ruling on.