Privacy Threat

Privacy Threat

A judge has ordered that YouTube turn over its complete logs of private viewings of videos to Viacom. Are we moving away from tenets of humanity and reason just to return to preindustrial era ideas of human ownership? Has the concept of privacy been abandoned in the US Justice system? How are 4 terabytes of logs going to be analysed by Viacom and what will stop them from using this commercial information for their own commerical gain? Has the judge overstepped the mark - and played into the hands of a dismissal? Or is this revealing of a more sinister campaign against individuality. Can what we do be handed over like chattels in this way without consulting us first?

The terms and conditions of any website are so long and complex 99% of humans do not read them. Folly, say the laywers. They still apply. I do not however agree that a term that my viewing patterns would be available to Viacom was on offer when I used YouTube and found otherwise buried content owned by Viacom. Now what will happen - will Viacom start to persue billions of damages from millions of users of YouTube?

Why? For goodness sake. Viacom is supposed to be an entertainment company. Not the bleeding gestapo.