YouTube data deal with Viacom

Google has reached a deal to protect the personal data of millions of YouTube users in a $1bn (about £497m) copyright case brought by media giant Viacom.

Earlier this month a US judge ordered Google, YouTube's owners, to release the information of every viewing log of every video on the site.

Under the new deal Google will make information about YouTube users including IP (internet protocol) addresses and login names anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom.

YouTube's users are drawn from all over the world with many of them based in the UK. It is Britain's most popular video-sharing website with a unique audience of 11.6 million in April 2008, according to Nielsen Online.

US media conglomerate Viacom, which owns TV channels Comedy Central and MTV, has long complained that YouTube was profiting by showing copyrighted content illegally and claimed that more than 150,000 unauthorised clips had been viewed 1.5 billion times.

"We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories and we will not be providing that information," Google said in a post on the official YouTube blog.

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