Viacom's big brother court techniques of obtaining You Tube user information is
a violation of user privacy rights. It was bad enough when the NSA spying became
obtrusive after the Patriot Act was passed, but it is unacceptable to have a
multinational corporation raping user privacy rights.

Google Attorney Catherine Lacavera said that: “We are disappointed the court granted Viacom’s overreaching demand for viewing history.... We are asking Viacom to respect users’ privacy and allow us to anonymize the logs before producing them under the court’s order.”

Kurt Opshal at the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted that: "The court’s order grants Viacom's request and erroneously ignores the protections of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), and threatens to expose deeply private information about what videos are watched by You Tube users. The VPPA passed after a newspaper disclosed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental records. As Congress recognized, your selection of videos to watch is deeply personal and deserves the strongest protection."

It was bad enough when the NSA and the Justice Department were wire tapping Americans without warrants, in the name of national security. However, Viacom
assuming the role of big brother on the internet is a gross violation of the VPPA, and
needs to stop now.

I don't want my MTV, if the corporate spys at Viacom want to violate my personal
internet rights on You Tube.