Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry's Business Model

Tue, Oct 21st 2008 9:02pm

Filed Under:
germany, ip address, personal info, private info

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German Court Rules That IP Addresses Are Not Personal Info

from the it's-just-business dept

There's been an ongoing discussion in Europe as to whether or not IP addresses should be considered personal info. The implications have a lot to do with how companies deal with your IP address. If it is considered private info, then they are quite limited in what they can do with it. If it's not, then it opens up ISPs to being required to store your IP addresses in log files that they may be required to keep. As we noted when this debate first heated up, the entire argument is a little misleading, as it sets up a false scenario. Lots of your info is private in some scenarios and public in others. You give out your name freely in some cases, but in others might not want it known. Your IP address is, by default, "public" in that you have to display it to computers you connect to in order to do anything online.

A German court has now ruled that IP addresses should not be considered personal info, and thus can be stored without problem by ISPs. In this case, an individual had sued, claiming that sites that kept log files were violating his privacy, but that would be like saying a store that videotaped you entering their premises violated your privacy. Putting yourself out in public means you're out in public, even if it's online. In this case, it sounds like the court got it right.

Too Much Free Time

Mon, Jul 14th 2008 6:41am

Filed Under:
copyright, dmca, employees, ip address, privacy, usernames

Companies:
google, viacom, youtube

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Turns Out Viacom Is Really Interested In What Google Employees Are Uploading/Viewing On YouTube

from the Google-janitors-are-supposed-to-know-copyright-laws dept

With all the fuss over a court telling Google it needs to give Viacom its log files, Google and Viacom have been discussing ways to hand over the data and retain anonymity (not an easy task). However, apparently one key point is that Viacom is most interested in finding out what Google employees were uploading and viewing on YouTube. That's an interesting, if sneaky, strategy, as in theory Viacom could use that to try to prove that Google employees "knew" that certain content was infringing, which potentially could remove some DMCA safe harbors. However, that would be a huge stretch in terms of the meaning of the law. If anything, this move shows how much Viacom's case appears to be based on grasping at straws. If the best it can do is try to show that some Google employees viewed or uploaded infringing material, that's a pretty weak case -- rather than focusing on the fundamental issue of how much responsibility Google has over the content users upload.

Legal Issues

Tue, Mar 18th 2008 8:42pm

Filed Under:
ip address, italy, monitoring, p2p, privacy

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Italy Says P2P Monitoring Firm Broke The Law -- But This Might Not Be A Good Thing

from the there-goes-that-evidence dept

There have been various accusations in the US that the techniques used by various P2P monitoring firms that the entertainment industry uses are an "illegal investigation." While we're still waiting to see the outcome of such cases, over in Italy, the government organization in charge of privacy has determined that, indeed, the efforts to monitor P2P use violates local privacy laws. This comes just a few months after a similar finding in Switzerland. With the EU recently saying that IP addresses are private information, you can see why these types of rulings are coming through.

While I will argue vehemently over the fact that the entertainment industry's tactics are wrong, short-sighted and unfair to many of the people it accuses of copyright infringement, I'm not so sure that merely collecting information that someone's computer broadcasts about themselves should be considered a violation of privacy. I do agree that ISPs shouldn't just hand over data on who's account is attached to a certain IP address (that's a privacy violation. But, to simply collect the data, which is publicly "broadcast" by the user, hardly seems like a privacy violation. There are plenty of arguments against the entertainment industry's tactics -- but you get into dangerous territory when you start declaring publicly broadcast information as somehow "private." While it may be appealing in that it makes life more difficult for short-sighted entertainment industry execs hellbent on suing customers, the unintended consequences of such things could be dire. It raises serious questions about how other types of publicly broadcast info may be judged later.

(Mis)Uses of Technology

Wed, Nov 7th 2007 4:10pm

Filed Under:
ip address

Companies:
airtel, google