Disappointing decision (this seems to be pretty clear re: privacy rights given previous rulings) - if this decision stands, organizations that leverage YouTube (or similar services) as part of their own social media efforts might want to consider the derivative implications that this ruling might have on their customers since their viewing habits might no longer be private:
Viewing Habits of YouTube Users | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Yesterday, in the Viacom v. Google litigation, the federal court for the Southern District of New York ordered Google to produce to Viacom (over Google's objections):
all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website
The court’s order grants Viacom's request and erroneously ignores the protections of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), and threatens to expose deeply private information about what videos are watched by YouTube users. The VPPA passed after a newspaper disclosed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental records. As Congress recognized, your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection.
Court Ruling Will Expose Viewing Habits of YouTube Users | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Hi,
As a blogger focused on collaboration, I thought you would be interested in an offer from Glance, detailed below in a letter from Glance Founder and CEO Rich Baker. The offer is a free one-year subscription to Glance, the web-conferencing tool that allows you to set up a screen sharing session with up to 100 people, in just seconds. Glance is unique in that it requires *no* downloads by your audience and can be started up instantly, making it the best tool for ad-hoc presentation needs that crop up frequently during conference calls.
Read on if you are interested. Contact Rich or me with questions. Thanks,
Barret Wolf
InkhousePR
We're offering a free year of Glance web conferencing
Attention bloggers:
This is Rich Baker from Glance Networks, Inc., makers of the one-click desktop sharing tool. I started Glance back in 2000 before blogging became the phenomenon it is today. I'm grateful to the blogging community, which I am now proud to be a part of myself, for being instrumental in helping enlighten folks about the way web conferencing helps companies extend their business reach, and reduce travel.
My passion has been to make web conferencing so easy, anyone can do it – reliably and quickly. Many of you may be Glance users yourselves. As one of the few cross-platform screen sharing tools on the market to allow meetings with up to 100 guests at a time, your interest in Glance has resulted in thousands of companies around the world doing business with us.
As a way to say thanks, we're offering any blogger a free year-long subscription to Glance's web conferencing service (a $499 value). Just contact me with your blog's URL.
(And BTW, I enjoy talking to Glance users, so feel free to contact me with your comments about our service!)
Kind Regards,
Rich and the Glance Team
[email protected]
781.646.8502
http://glance.net
http://blog.glancenetworks.com/
Posted by: Barret Wolf | July 03, 2008 at 02:42 PM