• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, July 14, 2008

Viacom's lawsuit against YouTube is continuing to roil digital rights advocates, who say that the case has already had ramifications far beyond the scope of intellectual property protections.

Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered YouTube to disclose users' records, including screennames and IP addresses, to Viacom. The entertainment company says it needs this information to show its clips are popular on the site, which in turn could prove that YouTube built its audience because it offered pirated material.

But the order is problematic for one key reason: It tramples over YouTube users' privacy. Google has said it will ask to "anonymize" the records before turning them over. Without more information, it's hard to know whether such efforts will really protect users. Simply knowing what type of Web activity is tied to a particular IP address can be enough to identify a user, regardless of whether that IP address itself is disclosed. Just ask AOL, which released "anonymized" logs of search queries only to see one user identified and profiled in The New York Times in a matter of days.

Now, the latest report is that the companies haven't yet been able to agree to anonymize users' records, according to CNet. The reason, apparently, is because Viacom is also specifically looking for information about videos uploaded by YouTube staff, and wants to make sure it will get that data before agreeing to anonymize user information, CNet reports. If YouTube employees seeded the site with pirated clips, Google would be in bad shape in court. That's because the DMCA safe harbors protect companies from infringement claims based on acts of users, but don't apply when the company itself is responsible for the infringement.

Meanwhile, Viacom has posted a Web page outlining its intentions, and a separate Q&A about privacy issues surrounding the case.

Viacom says it doesn't want users' personally identifiable information and says it will treat any information about users as confidential. Viacom also couldn't resist tweaking Google for having stored the data in the first place. "As to why such information is retained on Google's servers, you will have to ask Google that question."

Meantime, the ruling has brought home the point that companies that store data about users have very little control over whether such information will remain private.