With the big senate committee meeting and the testimony of ‘chief privacy officers’ and lawyers, the whole privacy issue has been pushed to the fore this past week.
Microsoft seems to be keeping their nose pretty clean – of course, they aren’t doing a whole lot, now, are they! Guess they are glad they didn’t buy Facebook, yet…
Google is having to handle a lot of fallout on the whole YouTube thing however. Users are really insulted that the resolution to the billion dollar lawsuit filed against Google over copyrighted material being shown on YouTube is to hand over user logs.
Right now, I’m glad I haven’t gotten around to formally signing up for YouTube. There’s no user logs on me, incriminating or otherwise! So I can be impartial when I say I am kind of ticked about Google’s apparent unconcern about handing over the user logs of YouTube users to Viacom to satisfy a lawsuit over copyright infringement.
Seems to me there are some people in QC not doing their job at YouTube, combined with some users admittedly breaking the law by distributing copyrighted content – but how does it come about that everyone’s records are now going to be handed over?
I do feel that copyright infringement should not be allowed. I think it’s kind of silly for Viacom to be making such a fuss over clips from Sponge Bob – I still think it’s great advertising – but hey, it is copyrighted.
I just don’t think the answer is for Google to blithely hand over what a lot of people would consider private data. What is Viacom going to do with it? Try to track down the pirates? Why can’t Google find them, and just pass their data over, instead of yours or mine?
What? YOU posted that clip from Sponge Bob Prehistoric? Whoops.
And how about Facebook, and now NebuAd watching my every move to pass that info along to advertisers and contacts? I’m kind of creeped out already by the ads I get served up alongside my G-mail – what’s going to happen when I’m researching for a journalistic piece on alcoholic rehabilitation and start getting flooded with spam from Betty Ford?
I’m not sure I like everybody knowing my business. I think I’m going to have to come up with a secondary identity to use online! I’m sure I won’t be the only one.
Tags: advertising, Facebook, privacy, Viacom