Panic over: YouTube viewers are no longer royally screwed
This isn't the case, finally confirmed by YouTube/Google yesterday:
As we let you know on July 4, YouTube received a court order to produce viewing history data. 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. (Read the official legalese here.)
Not everybody is too happy about it mind you; the general consensus seems that people are grateful that user's information isn't being given to Viacom, however some question whether it should have ever come this far, and if there's any availability to opt out of data collection.
The ironic thing, is the image in this article was taken from an episode of Family Guy which has been left on YouTube. It sems the filter that YouTube uses to remove copyrighted material isn't perfect after all.
As one of the commentators says, Google well and truly dodged a bullet today.