Google balks at providing YouTube records of employees

CNet reports on what may be the stumbling block in Google and Viacom’s failure to reach an agreement regarding YouTube user data (which I’ve blogged on here and here):

Viacom wants to know which videos YouTube employees have watched and uploaded to the site, and Google is refusing to provide that information, CNET News has learned.

This dispute is the reason the two companies, and lawyers representing a group of other copyright holders suing Google, have failed to reach a final agreement on anonymizing personal information belonging to YouTube users, according to two sources close to the situation.

From a discovery standpoint, I’m not sure what Google’s rationale might be for refusing to hand over employee data.  If anything, as the CNet article points out, employee data might be highly relevant to Viacom’s claims and detrimental to Google’s DMCA safe harbor defense.  What did the employees do?  Did they upload infringing videos?  Did they have actual knowledge of infringement?

In any case, this underscores why it’s a bad idea to leave privacy protections to those who profit from gathering our data.  It also makes Google seem to be more protective of its employees than of the public.  As TechCrunch put it today:

Google’s self imposed code of conduct is “Don’t be evil.”  It doesn’t say “don’t be evil unless there’s important litigation at stake.”  Google’s reputation is on the line, and how they respond will show their true character.  They’ve shown they’ll go to bat for employees, now it’s time for them to show they’ll go to bat for their users.

Hat tip: Gigalaw.

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