Google trying to take privacy seriously

This week was a very interesting week as far as Google and privacy goes. First, a burglary (the same on that affected CNET earlier last month) was confirmed to have affected all Google employees hired before December 31, 2005. There’s nothing Google could have done about it, but it’s definitely a blow for those involved. Employee records contain everything from names to social security numbers, and unfortunately, Google’s were stored unencrypted on the stolen computers. Google has offered to cover the cost for a one year subscription to a credit monitoring service.

On top of this problem, Google was ordered by a judge to hand over terabytes of YouTube logs to Viacom in the lawsuit against Google. Even though this is clearly something that affects the privacy of anyone that has ever used YouTube, it gets worse.

Most people would consider the disclosure of which IP addresses watched which videos a privacy nightmare, and I’m sure that would be the grounds Google will likely try to oppose the decision on. Unfortunately, Google’s own words on their Public Policy blog were referenced in the judges order to hand over data.