According to BBC News: a US court ruled that Google must release the viewing history of YouTube users to Viacom in order to comply with copyright infringement laws. Google's legal counsel said: "We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order."

Apparently, privacy experts find this ruling a tad, uh, frightening:

Leading privacy expert Simon Davies told BBC News that the privacy of millions of YouTube users was threatened.

He said: "The chickens have come home to roost for Google.

"Their arrogance and refusal to listen to friendly advice has resulted in the privacy of tens of millions being placed under threat."

Mr Davies said privacy campaigners had warned Google for years that IP addresses were personally identifiable information.

Google pledged last year to anonymise IP addresses for search information but it has said nothing about YouTube data.

Mr Davies said: "Governments and organisations are realising that companies like Google have a warehouse full of data. And while that data is stored it is under threat of being used and putting privacy in danger."

The EFF said: "The Court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube.

"We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users."

The body said the ruling was also potentially unlawful because the log data did contain personally identifiable data.

No need to be concerned about an "overbroad" ruling, though. The Court considers such concerns to be "speculative." I mean, it's not like the government has ever conspired with private companies to commit crimes against the American people and destroy the Constitution or anything.

And now for the real reason why I posted: Make sure Big Brother, Inc. knows you like to check out pole dancing bears!