YouTube users are up in arms about Viacom’s legal victory forcing Google to hand by input showing which videos they watch and when.

The backlash pursues U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton’s ruling last week that Google must supply Viacom with the records as part of the discovery phase in a $1 billion lawsuit alleging copyright infringement.

While the court denied Viacom’s demand for YouTube’s source cipher, Stanton did require YouTube to hand by the user knowledge. As a aftereffect, YouTube users are calling for a boycott of Viacom.

A Social Media Tit for Tat

By Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of new videos were springing up when “Viacom” was typed into YouTube’s search engine. Some of the videos, with headlines like “VIACOM VS YOU = BOYCOTT,” “Viacom is a Copyright Bully,” and “Viacom Knows You Are Watching that Video,” had been viewed more than 100,000 times.

Viacom could not immediately be reached for comment. A statement on its Web site attempts to reassure YouTube users.

“A recent discovery order

by the federal court hearing the case of Viacom v. YouTube has triggered concern about what info will be disclosed by Google and YouTube and how it will be used. Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable info of any YouTube user,” the statement said.

According to Viacom, the personally identifiable data that YouTube collects from its users will be stripped from the details before it is transferred to Viacom. Viacom said it “will use the goods exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against YouTube and Google.” Viacom plus said it has been in discussions with Google to develop a framework to share the details.

“We are committed to a process that will not only comply with the court’s confidentiality order, but that will additionally meet our commitment to the strongest possible…

Original post by Mike

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