July 03, 2008

Thought Police no longer fiction Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled. Thank goodness I have nothing to worry about- oh, wait!
posted by kamus 15 years ago
  • dammit
  • Kiss your freedoms goodbye!!
  • That's why: - When I use googlemail, I have it in one browser and use google for searches with another, never log-in to 'my google'. - Use a dummy account on youtube and other sites like that. - Use proxies for browsign whenever possible.
  • Previously.... I think this is a canard.
  • But why would Viacom have the right to user info? ESPECIALLY If a user never watched their copyrighted material. I just don't understand the chain of logic.
  • Kevvin's google protection regimen: 1. Clear all cookies once per day and when shutting down browser. 2. Hang up dsl and reconnect at least once a day for new ip address 3. Never use gmail. 4. Use Privoxy to block google adsense, analytics, etc. Google is the Total Information Awareness program Poindexter wished he had. And the government gets free, unobstructed, secret NSL access to everything they know.
  • And nobody is going to try to get an injunction filed? Preferably someone with a static IP, who can then prove that their IP can be personally identifiable.
  • At the risk of invoking the wrath of the copyright mafia, I wish to share with you a poem which gives me some comfort when I read news like this. "DO NOT BE ASHAMED" by Wendell Berry You will be walking some night in the comfortable dark of your yard and suddenly a great light will shine round about you, and behind you will be a wall you never saw before. It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape, and that you are guilty: you misread the complex instructions, you are not a member, you lost your card or never had one. And you will know that they have been there all along, their eyes on your letters and books, their hands in your pockets, their ears wired to your bed. Though you have done nothing shameful, they will want you to be ashamed. They will want you to kneel and weep and say you should have been like them. And once you say you are ashamed, reading the page they hold out to you, then such light as you have made in your history will leave you. They will no longer need to pursue you. You will pursue them, begging forgiveness. They will not forgive you. There is no power against them. It is only candor that is aloof from them, only an inward clarity, unashamed, that they cannot reach. Be ready. When their light has picked you out and their questions are asked, say to them: "I am not ashamed." A sure horizon will come around you. The heron will begin his evening flight from the hilltop.
  • Yeah. Right.
  • Cynicise all you want, but it looks to me like Viacom is suing YouTube (not YouTube's users) for building a multi-billion-dollar business by providing access to copyright material. The court judgement to release user information is designed to allow Viacom to see how many unique users (if you read the article, Viacom will be happy with non-traceable unique identifiers other than IP addresses) downloaded Viacom material and also to determine if YouTube employees (i.e. anyone with YouTube-assigned IP addresses) uploaded copyright material to purposely violate copyrights. If there's a "yeah, right" in here it's better suited to the over-the-top scaremongering.
  • stomper, I had not previously heard that poem. It gave me chills.