I’m just catching up with the news online and found an article on BBC News about Viacom and Google.

I must say I am very worried about this ruling. Not because I search on YouTube for anything naughty - in fact I barely surf there as I’m too busy (lol). It’s the whole privacy issue that big companies and law courts seem to be riding roughshod over in the name of protecting copyrights.

Yes, I know copyright infringement is wrong. My husband was a singer in a heavy metal band years ago (Pariah/Satan for those interested) and is all for making sure artists get paid for their work so I do understand the worries. However, why should everyone be penalised for watching videos - not uploading per se - but just watching. If it’s there, they will watch. I realise that Viacom isn’t necessarily going to go after watchers, but to have your personal surfing habits handed over to a company, in a foreign country no less, is a penalty that surfers should not have to pay.

Further to this is the letter being sent out to Virgin customers. 

Nick Kotarski recently commented on another of my posts with this information which I thought very astute (if that’s the right word)

Sir Tim Berners-Lee said recently in an interview with the BBC that ISPs should behave like any other utility company. “I myself feel that it is very important that my ISP supplies internet to my house like the water company supplies water to my house,” he added.

“It supplies connectivity with no strings attached. My ISP doesn’t control which websites I go to, it doesn’t monitor which websites I go to.”

I was trying to explain to my husband as he was quite dismissive about companies rifling through our surfing habits and cutting off our broadband if we didn’t conform. I quoted the above and said it was like an electric company catching someone using electricity to run an illegal operation so then coming in to everyone’s homes to monitor what they were doing with said electricity just to make sure nothing illegal was going on.

It’s about time the general public were woken up to what these big companies are trying to do in the name of legality but in reality in the name of bigger profits.  Unfortunately, as long as people (like my husband) do not understand the ramifications of what’s going on our privacy and control will continue to be eroded.