Lawyers in YouTube lawsuit reach user privacy deal

[unapatriciated]

By Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Defendants and plaintiffs in two related copyright infringement lawsuits against YouTube have reached a deal to protect the privacy of millions of YouTube watchers during evidence discovery, a spokesman for Google Inc said on Monday.

Earlier in July, a New York federal judge ordered Google to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom Inc and other plaintiffs to help them to prepare a confidential study of what they argue are vast piracy violations on the video-sharing site.

Google said it had now agreed to provide plaintiffs' attorneys for Viacom and a class action group led by the Football Association of England a version of a massive viewership database that blanks out YouTube username and Internet address data that could be used to identify individual video watchers.

"We have reached agreement with Viacom and the class action group," Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said. "They have agreed to let us anonymize YouTube user data," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP21085220080715