viacom

Viacom won't soon shed image as corporate bully

Despite winning an important legal victory against Google last week, Viacom's public image is taking a beating.

Ever since Viacom, parent company of MTV and Paramount Pictures, filed a $1 billion copyright suit against Google's YouTube last year, Google has won kudos for championing the rights of Internet users. On the other side, Viacom was blasted by critics who accused it of trying to lock down information and block people from enjoying South Park and The Daily Show.

Neither of these two perceptions is entirely accurate. But what is true is that there is little Viacom--or any other … Read more

First YouTube user information revealed to Viacom after yesterday's court order

Yesterday, a judge ordered Google to reveal YouTube users' information.

The search meg(ood)alopoly has already expressed its disappointment at the ruling.

"We are disappointed," said Google's legal counsel.

Viacom's legal counsel was equally depressed by the proceedings:

"The information that is produced by Google is going to be limited to outside advisers who can use it solely for the purpose of enforcing our rights against YouTube and Google," he said. "I can unequivocally state that we will not use any of this information to enforce rights against end users."

I … Read more

Daily Debrief: Celebrating America's independence, questioning our own online

A day before the United States celebrates its independence, we continue to question our individual freedoms online. In Thursday's Daily Debrief, CNET News.com Editor in Chief Dan Farber and I discuss a federal judge's recent ruling in the ongoing Google-Viacom lawsuit that orders Google to turn over YouTube user activity. This will include videos watched, IP addresses, and usernames as part of an ongoing copyright infringement case.

Understandably, this news is disconcerting for YouTube users. Sources tell CNET News.com, however, that if Viacom uses this information for anything other than investigating piracy issues, it will be … Read more

News.com Daily Podcast: Should YouTube users worry about privacy?

In the latest turn in Viacom's copyright infringement suit against YouTube and parent company Google, a federal judge ruled that Google must hand over YouTube users' IP addresses and user names, plus a history of videos they've viewed. The court order stipulates that data turned over to Viacom by Google must be used solely to prove Viacom's claim that YouTube is a hotbed of pirated video content. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation stills sees the ruling as a blow to user privacy. CNET News.com reporter Caroline McCarthy tells News.com's Leslie Katz why.

Plus, we … Read more

EIC Squared: Indexing Flash; Powerset; and Viacom vs. Google

On this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss this week's big stories. It was a busy week on the search front. Adobe is providing Google and Yahoo with Flash Player technology that allows their search engine crawlers to find and index SWF content, including Flash "gadgets" such as buttons or menus and self-contained Flash Web sites. It's good to make more information accessible via search engines. However, Microsoft has been silent on whether Live Search would index Flash content.

In addition, Microsoft bought Powerset for about $100 million to enhance … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 759: Worms on the tongue

And that, my friends, is how we get you to listen all the way to the end. But in actual news of the day, a judge ordered Google to expose the viewing habits of millions of YouTube users. But it's OK, because only a few people will get to look at them. That's fine, right? Also, we freak out about privacy and identity theft, just in time for a study that acknowledges that consumers are freaking out about privacy and identity theft. Plus, the power of video compels you...to switch to broadband.

Listen now: Download today's podcast … Read more

Google to Viacom: 'Respect YouTube users' privacy'

Viacom is getting its hands on some of YouTube's sensitive user data as a result of the copyright infringement lawsuit the conglomerate filed a year ago.

The two companies are in the discovery part of the case and must make certain information available to each other. On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that Google must turn over YouTube user activity--videos watched, IP addresses, and usernames.

Google responded on Thursday in a statement to the court's order.

"We are pleased the court put some limits on discovery," Google said in the statement, "including refusing to … Read more

Source: Protective order will keep Viacom out of sensitive YouTube user data

Google has been ordered to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom. But Viacom will be guilty of contempt of court if it uses that data for anything other than specifically proving the prevalence of piracy on YouTube, a source close to Viacom told CNET News.com on Thursday.

That's serious business. Contempt of court is the sort of thing that can get a lawyer's license taken away.

On Wednesday night, a federal judge ruled that Google must turn over YouTube user activity--videos watched, IP addresses, usernames--to legal foe Viacom as part of a long-running copyright infringement … Read more

Google opens-up Ratproxy code

Perhaps Viacom should have just asked nicely for Google's YouTube code.

This week, a federal judge denied Viacom's demand that Google turn over its YouTube source code, arguing that "YouTube and Google should not be made to place this vital asset in hazard merely to allay speculation."

Ironically, on that same day, Google freely open-sourced Ratproxy, a passive Web application security audit tool developed for Google's internal use and now made generally available.

Google's Michael Zalewski writes:

We decided to make this tool freely available as open source because we feel it will be … Read more