Legal Research

Google & Viacom Agree to Anonymize Data

By Steven Matthews

Following up on a post earlier by Connie, and with a BIG hat tip to David Fraser, it seems Google & Viacom have agreed to anonymize the IP data being turned over from the server logs, and that Viacom has agreed not to attempt to decipher.

Link: Stipulation filed with the Courts

And since I’m totally cribbing off David’s post anyway, here’s the extract he pulled:

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED, by and between the undersigned counsel of record:

1. Substituted Values: When producing data from the Logging Database pursuant to the Order, Defendants shall substitute values while preserving uniqueness for entries in the following fields: User ID, IP Address and Visitor ID. The parties shall agree as promptly as feasible on a specific protocol to govern this substitution whereby each unique value contained in these fields shall be assigned a correlative unique substituted value, and preexisting interdependencies shall be retained in the version of the data produced. Defendants shall promptly (no later than 7 business days after execution of this Stipulation) provide a proposed protocol for this substitution. Defendants agree to reasonably consult with Plaintiffs? consultant if necessary to reach agreement on the protocol.

2. Non-Circumvention: The parties agree that they shall not engage in any efforts to circumvent the encryption utilized pursuant to Paragraph 1 this Stipulation. This Paragraph does not limit in any way any party?s rights under Paragraph 8 below.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on July 16, 2008 (boomark / email).