Index - expand your thinking

Today I read this news in extreme newspaper about the Web of contention, I want to share it with you, thats why I mention it here.
For some inexplicable reason, an overwhelming majority of Internet users believe that they are anonymous while surfing the Net. They could not be more wrong, as the recent controversy about You Tube demonstrates. what is , arguably, the most popular video sharing website in the world is locked in a billion-dollar lawsuit for the infringement of copyright with Viacom and other copyright holders. A judge in New York has ordered You Tube to release information about who watches which video clips and when. This has raised major concerns among the advocates of privacy even though the data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user's real name or e-mail address. The 12 terabytes of data - equivalent to the text of 12 million books - is a database that includes information on when each video gets played, and attached to each entry is each viewer's unique login ID and the Internet Protocol (IP) address for that viewer's computer.

Everything that an ordinary computer user does online can be traced. The issue of employers violating privacy by checking workers' electronic communications has been examined by various courts worldwide. Search engines keep records of users' activities. For computers users, much of their daily activities are centred around computers, either online, or offline. They maintain diaries, personal mail, financial records, family photos and much more. Therefore, it is important that the privacy of users is respected and not violated, except when specifically required and legally sanctioned.

The legal world has not evolved enough to be in step with the cyber world, which continuously poses new and complex challenges. These challenges are as much legal as technological. There is an urgent need for international law to tackle issues pertaining to companies which are physically within nations, but operate without borders and are accessed and used by a trans-national clientele. The privacy concerns over the access to You Tube data is yet another instance that highlights the importance of coming to legal terms with the complexities of the web.