YouTube Hands Out Your Personal Information: The Information Age Left Privacy Behind

A federal judge recently told Google, in no uncertain terms, that it must hand over all YouTube records about who watched what since the company was created in 2005. That sentence won't sound as bad as the following. That means that YouTube must also hand over the login names and IP addresses attached to those viewing records.

That's right, your login name and IP address.

And it's safe to say that to anybody because odds are good that everyone you know has been to YouTube. While it may not concern you that someone has your login name and IP address, this court ruling has deeper implications.



Viacom got this ruling as a result of their lawsuit against Google. Viacom wants your viewing records to see if it's more likely that you viewed copyright infringing videos on YouTube than user-generated videos.

This ruling creates another precedent for divulging your private information in a case where you are not the perpetrator. As such, the Electronic Frontier Foundation decried the ruling, saying it violated the Video Privacy Protection act.

But this is just one of the myriad ways our privacy is taken, and to be honest, much of the time it's our own fault. We are constantly giving away our privacy in other venues. A New York Times article recently talked about our penchant for posting private information on websites like Facebook, Flickr, personal blogs and others.

But the ironic thing is that we still look for more ways to provide information about ourselves. David Pogue, the New York Times tech columnist, posted a video about a technology that records the exact geological location of each photo you take. This sounds exciting, much like GPS, but what happens when you take pictures in your own home and post them online? Suddenly anyone can get the exact location of your home.

It's conundrums like these that make it hard to get mad at Viacom for "stealing" our information; because in this Information Age, we're only too willing to give it out.

If you are interested in protecting your privacy and personal information, check out our reviews of Privacy Software and Internet Security Suites.

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