Is it truth or fiction that search engine giant Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by the users of it’s popular YouTube internet service to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on the site ? Privacy advocates all around the world have been fearing the day when Google’s collection of personal information, gathered from it’s search engine, Adsense advertising program, video sites, webmaster services and e-mail services, somehow spill over into the public domain.

According to a news story at Ft.com, Manhattan federal court judge Louis L. Stanton has ordered Google to turn over logfiles, ip addresses and copies of all videos that it has taken down from YouTube for any reason. Viacom hopes to use this collection of data to show that copyright infringing videos uploaded by YouTube users are viewed more often than the site’s non copyright infringing videos.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has run into a fresh storm over online privacy after a US judge ordered YouTube, its popular online video site, to hand over records detailing the viewing habits of its millions of users. … The order will force YouTube to give Viacom detailed computer logs with information about all the videos that have been viewed on site, along with the login information and computer addresses of all of its users. Source : Financial News

The San Jose Business Journal has released a contrary article stating that Viacom’s request has been denied…

A federal judge denied a request by Viacom Inc. that Google Inc. and its YouTube subsidiary be forced to turn over code relating to their search functions. Manhattan U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton granted a request by Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) protecting the code. Google said the source code, which controls its Internet search tool and YouTube functions, is a trade secret and disclosing it would put the business at risk. Source : Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal

Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users’ privacy, the judge’s ruling (.pdf) described that argument as “speculative” and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.

Viacom also requested YouTube’s source code, the code for identifying repeat copyright infringement uploads, copies of all videos marked private, and Google’s advertising database schema.

Those requests were denied in whole, except that Google will have to turn over data about how often each private video has been watched and by how many persons.

Google’s defense of YouTube

Google Inc. has mounted a defense against the viacom lawsuit tating the following :

Among other defenses, YouTube and Google claim the protection afforded by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (“DMCA”) (17 U.S.C. §§ 512(c)-(d), (i)-(j)), which among other things limits the terms of injunctions, and bars copyright-damage awards, against an online service provider who: (1) performs a qualified storage or search function for internet users; (2) lacks actual or imputed knowledge of the infringing activity; (3) receives no financial benefit directly from such activity in a case where he has the right and ability to control it; (4) acts promptly to remove or disable access to the material when his designated agent is notified that it is infringing; (5) adopts, reasonably implements and publicizes a policy of terminating repeat infringers; and (6) accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works.

What does this mean for Google ?

It’s no secret that Google Inc has been down over 200 points from it’s 52 week high of 747.24 and Google has been struggling to keep their stock from falling even further. Although the YouTube news today was mildly disturbing to investors, GOOG gained 9.96 (1.89%) as participants traded listlessly in a shortened session just ahead of the Independence Day holiday.

On the other hand, Viacom Inc. was down 0.50 (1.66%) today.