On July 1, a federal judge in New York ordered YouTube to release a database of the viewing habits of its users to Viacom. The decision has alarmed privacy advocates.
The 12-terabyte database holds the private information of hundreds of millions of viewers, including login ID, computer address and the time material is viewed. Despite assurances that the search logs will be anonymized, previous experience shows that anonymization is not fail-safe.
Viacom claims YouTube promotes the upload of pirated copyrighted material, a violation of capitalist property rights. Both companies, already massive monopolies, are competing for overlapping markets. Google, the largest Internet search engine in the world, owns YouTube. Viacom is the parent company of MTV, Showtime, Paramount Pictures and many other subsidiaries.
Capitalist interests frequently trump civil rights. As the two companies battle over markets and profits, user privacy may be the first casualty.
