Maybe, but then sould know what they are renting. But a youtube link can be anything. Remember people are still getting rick rolled. - Grant Bierman

If this were a police state it would. Or if it were Iraq and you were renting Christian videos. There was a segment on 60 Minutes this week about how the 1 million Christians in Iraq were either killed or exiled. Almost all are gone. So yes, if we value our freedom, that kind of information must be protected. Try asking a librarian for that info, they'll say the same thing. - Dave Winer

Yes if they plan on mailing me anything. My name and rental history. I don't care. I just don't want any spam from them - Corvida from twhirl

yes - Steven Hodson

I'm all for wanton outrage, but isn't the scope of the order to determine a very specific question: that Youtube is, in fact, benefitting in large part due to copyright infringing content? Viacom wants to prove to the court that most of what's watched on Youtube is copyright infringing content; to do that you need to see all the records of everything that's watched. I would imagine that in order for them to sue individual people, it would require a separate court order. - Mark Trapp

Mark, if that's all they wanted, they could make do with anonymized data. - Paul Buchheit

if viacom wanted name, addresses, rental history, credit card numbers and birthdays as well; would that be worrisome? what line of data being crossed is teh distinguisher for cause to worry? - Nathan Eckenrode

Actually, the judge would deny the request the same as it was denied for a similar request in the current ruling. - Dennis E. Hamilton

@DaveWiner interestingly enough, the best place in the middle east to be a Christian is Syria - Prolific Programmer

@Mark Trapp: It is not enought to say that Youtube is benefitting, whatever that means. There is a statutory protection against an intermediary being responsible, so Viacom wants to show that YouTube's algorithms promote the pirated content out of proportion to other content, so that they can show inducement. The judge ruled against them when they wanted some over-broad discoveries. - Dennis E. Hamilton

Dennis, right: so while I'm sure, yeah, Viacom would love to use the data they're going to receive to do other nefarious things, they can't. Or am I missing something? - Mark Trapp

Yet another way our civil liberties are being eroded in the name of capitalism and protecting big business. - Nick Dynice

I'm much more disappointed in a legal system that would grant Viacom access to the info. Why isn't the outrage pointed at the system, instead of something that takes advantage of the system? - Robert Seidman

Considering that Viacom owned Blockbuster up to a few years ago, it would probably not be a big deal. I doubt Blockbuster would have a problem parting with the information now. - Gabe

Paging Judge Bork... - Andrew Feinberg

I didn't know about the prior ownership, which makes it an odd example I guess. There are actually special privacy laws that apply to video rentals though: "The Act forbids a video rental or sales outlet from disclosing information concerning what tapes a person borrows and buys, or releasing other personally identifiable information without the informed, written consent of the customer." - http://www.privacilla.org/busines... - Paul Buchheit

@Mark Trapp - some data they are not allowed to have, whatever they say they want it for. In the case at hand (http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/2008...) , the Judge ruled on 8 motions and three were granted: (1) to see the schema for the video content database, (2) to see the information from the logging database for each time a YouTube video has been viewed from YouTube (via embedding or directly), and (3) to receive all videos that have been removed by YouTube. There's another which could be granted partially, concerning some non-content data about videos in private areas under YouTube. Information about the actual private content is protected by law, but Viacom will use what it might be able to get about non-content information to demonstrate that a particular area is not private in the sense that is protected. - Dennis E. Hamilton

Maybe the fault lies, in part, with YouTube for not anonymizing log files after a certain point? - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Is Viacom covertly networking with any intelligence agencies? What are the politics of the people at the top of Viacom? What are their social networks? - Sean McBride

Who says they don't already have this info? Certainly if they wanted it bad enough they could pay the going rate and get it anyway. - Brian Sullivan