Partner Jeffrey Johnson Comments on Google/Viacom YouTube Dispute in E-Commerce Times
The July 15, 2008 edition of E-Commerce Times featured an article by entitled “Google, Viacom Hammer Out Privacy Terms in YouTube Case.” In the article, Erika Morphy reported that “YouTube viewers perturbed by the possibility that their viewing histories might become exposed in Viacom's billion-dollar lawsuit against Google can now rest easy. The companies have agreed to keep personal identities anonymous as they wrangle over the legal arguments in the copyright case.”
Pryor Cashman partner Jeffrey Johnson was interviewed for the article and told Morphy that while it is doubtful that the data can provide a straightforward summary of someone's video viewing habits, it should be easy enough to connect the dots to develop such a profile if someone were so inclined. “This is a huge amount of data that we are talking about. Maybe you could take one piece of it and not see anything particularly sensitive about an individual – but when you take it as a whole and start cross-referencing data points with other information, there is a substantial risk that somebody could learn a good deal about a person.”
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