Viacom Decides It Doesn't Need YouTube Histories

Viacom has backed off a request to gain access to all YouTube user histories after public outcry over privacy concerns, according to a YouTube blog post.

"We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information," YouTube said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Judge Louis Stanton with the U.S. District Court for Southern New York ruled that Google must provide Viacom with YouTube user histories in Viacom's ongoing $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against the video Web site.

That meant that Google had to hand over all the information contained in its logging database, including the login ID of the users who have watched videos, the time they started to watch the video, users' IP address, and the video identifier.

Privacy advocates were aghast and said the ruling threatened to expose the identities of millions of YouTube users. Viacom had argued that the information it requested would not contain personally identifiable data.

Whether or not an IP address contains such data has been a point of contention. Some argue that not much can be garnered from a bunch of numbers, but combine that with someone's search history or username, and a more industrious Web user might be able to piece some things together about that user's identity.

Under Monday's deal between YouTube and Viacom, YouTube will basically mask user IDs, IP addresses and visitor IDs and describe them in some other manner. The two parties have not yet agreed how that will happen, but under the agreement, YouTube has seven days after the court approves the deal to come up with a workable plan.

Viacom also agreed not to circumvent any encryption techniques YouTube might put in place to protect user identities.

Viacom is apparently still seeking to evaluate the activity of YouTube employees and agents on the site because the masking technique they agreed upon for the average users does not extend to employees and agents, according to the filing. Viacom and YouTube plan to meet on that issue in the next 14 days, it said.

YouTube said Monday that it remains "committed to protecting your privacy and we'll continue to fight for your right to share and broadcast your work on YouTube."