July 15th, 2008
Viacom, Google cut deal on user data
Compromise in the standoff over YouTube user data in the Viacom v. Google suit. Negotiators for the two companies have forged a deal in which Google hands over the data but without personally identifying information, Reuters reports.
“We have reached agreement with Viacom and the class-action group,” a Google spokesman, Ricardo Reyes, said. “They have agreed to let us anonymize YouTube user data.”
The agreement blanks out IP addresses and YouTube user names.
A few weeks ago, a federal judge ordered Google to hand over the database, and was unimpressed with Google argument that the database would compromise users’ privacy.
The deal comports with what Viacom declared in a statement last week:
Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any YouTube user. The personally identifiable information that YouTube collects from its users will be stripped from the data before it is transferred to Viacom.
