YouTube viewer details to be supplied to Viacom Google forced by judge to hand over info

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4 July 2008 10:13 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

A judge in New York has said that Google must pass on the details of more than 100 million people - many of them in the UK - to Viacom, the US TV company that Google is involved in with a billion-dollar court case.

The argument is that Viacom's "experts" need to data in order to conduct a detailed examination of the viewing habits of millions of people around the world.

As well as internet addresses and email accounts, the data will contain info on the history of every video watched on the website.

Civil liberties campaigners are up in arms over the decision that will see an unprecedented amount of personal info turned over to a private company.

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Comments

  • This is shocking.. i have uploaded videos to youtube etc in the past and never signed anything to say it was ok for my information to be shared like this. BANG OUT OF ORDER!!!! Posted by Jera, UK
  • I totally agree. Viacom's just a "private" company. I could understand maybe (although would still have concerns) if the info had to go through an official body, such as Ofcom or the like, but to provide this kind of personal info to just A.N. Other corporation seems absolutely shocking. It's a seriously dangerous precedent to set. Posted by elliott, United Kingdom

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