Viacom wins right to sift through YouTube user data, all four terabytes of it

viacomyoutube.gifIn the long running battle between Viacom and Google over YouTube hosting copyrighted videos, Viacom has now won a ruling to allow it to access a complete set of video viewing records, totalling some four terabytes of data.

Google argues that the data, which lists every IP address and the videos watched, would infringe on its users’ privacy. The judge used Google’s own argument — that IP addresses don’t personally identify an individual — to throw out that objection.