Billion dollar litigation versus privacy

Since March 2007, Google has been involved in a US legal battle worth around 1 billion dollars with Viacom, the owners of Paramount Pictures and MTV over an alleged infringement of Viacom's copyright.

Viacom has alleged that YouTube (purchased by Google in 2006) housed approximately 160K unauthorised clips of its programmes, which had been viewed on over 1.5 billion occasions by users.

We welcome this correction by the US Court. The dazzling lights of billion dollar litigation should not blind the judiciary from the privacy laws enshrined in US legislation and indeed the European Convention of Human Rights in the EU.

A US Court order had originally ordered Google to disclose the personal details of millions of YouTube users in order for Viacom to effectively prepare its case against Google. However, after hearing the wrath of privacy activists who contended that the original order threatened to deeply expose private information, the US Court has varied its original order. The BBC has today reported that the new order obliges Google to still hand over the data logs to Viacom but without disclosing the user's personal details.

Unless settled, the case will come to trial next year or in 2010.