Barnes & Noble Claims That Public User Names Are Private Info; Refuses To Restore Blog With Comments

from the huh? dept

We've linked to the Photography Is Not A Crime (PINAC) blog on Pixiq.com many times in the past. To be honest, I had no idea that the site was actually owned by Barnes and Noble -- I had assumed that it was just an independent blogging operation. It turns out, however, that B&N hired Carlos Miller, who had written PINAC as an independent blog, and "moved" the blog to Pixiq two years ago. However, it recently chose not to renew his contract, and agreed to transfer the blog back to being independent. Except... that now it's claiming that it cannot transfer all of the comments on the site because that would somehow violate B&N's privacy policies (note that link goes to PINAC at Pixiq... but I have no idea where it will go in a week when the "transfer" takes place). At best, B&N says it can transfer the comments but only as "anonymous."

At first, Pixiq was asking me to sign a document, which stated that the migration of my blog would not include a single comment because of its privacy policy.

But when I protested, Pixiq attorney Gillian Berman said they would make an exception in my case and migrate the comments, but turn every username into “anonymous,” which would make every single comment over the last two years appear to have been left the same person.

This makes no sense. We're not talking about handing private info over to a third party, but the actual names that people chose to display publicly. Perhaps B&N would have an argument if there's concern about transferring email addresses or IP address info with the comments -- but even that seems like a stretch. People commented on a blog. Transferring the entire blog to a different site doesn't change any of that -- but it's especially stupid when it comes to public info like commenters' chosen display names.

It seems like the only explanation I can figure out is that B&N is being incredibly lazy here, and doesn't want to do the bare minimum amount of work to return the blog to Carlos. We've seen a few other blogs "join" different sites in the past, and it seems worth highlighting how the separation can create ridiculous problems like this when a big company decides to make claims that just don't make any sense.

Filed Under: blogs, photography is not a crime, private info, public, usernames
Companies: barnes and noble

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.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, employees, ip address, privacy, usernames
Companies: google, viacom, youtube

NY State Demands Email Addresses/Usernames Of Sex Offenders

from the grandstanding-to-protect-the-children dept

Chris writes in to let us know about a new law passed in NY State that requires any sex offender to register any email addresses and screennames with the government. Any time a sex offender registers a new name or email address, he needs to alert the state within 10 days. While you can understand the grandstanding reasoning behind this ("protect the children!"), this really does seem fairly pointless. It's similar to a federal proposal, and all it really does is create a huge bureaucracy. Despite what the mainstream media has portrayed, the vast majority of sex offenders are not online stalking people. Most involve people known to the offender (all too often family members). In fact, recent research has shown that the whole "internet threat" thing is totally overblown. This isn't to absolve sex offenders of their crimes -- but to question the reasoning behind this sort of law. Those who are really out to stalk kids online will simply ignore this law -- and all NY State gets is a big bureaucratic mess tracking usernames and emails.

Filed Under: email, new york, politicians, sex offenders, usernames