More on Google/YouTube/Viacom

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July 3, 2008

Search Engine Land on the Google/YouTube/Viacom ruling:

“Last year, Microsoft and Ask called for some industry standards (a call that would have been better if they’d involved Yahoo and Google beforehand). Google also called for a global privacy standard last year, then this year said it would back a national law, in response to the latest letter over privacy issues from US representative Joe Barton. Microsoft also pushed for a privacy framework this year.”

“We need it. And we need it without political grandstanding, without the privacy advocates arguing that it will water down US state laws (as EPIC did in response to Google saying they’d back a national law). We need protection, and we need various groups to diligently work together to make that happen.

“I remain amazed that after the AOL data leak in 2006, little has happened since then to proect us. But when lawmakers start to understand that the porn and other embarrassing material some of them have watched on YouTube is to be handed over to Viacom, maybe they’ll finally wake up. Remember, lawmakers, even those now deleted videos are fair game.”

I agree with the last sentiment in that excerpt. In the absence of a personal angle, most people are stubbornly resistant to what they consider privacy paranoia.

I don’t much like the idea that “the privacy advocates” should stop talking back to Google when it says next to nothing, which was most certainly the case when the company floated its headline-spinning “support” of legislation nobody’s even drawn up yet.

(Link)