It seems as if privacy concerns have carried the day when it comes to the court ruling that handed over to Viacom highly detailed YouTube user logs. After hackles were raised online and elsewhere, Viacom maintained they had never requested information that could have been tied back to individual users. (Not true.)

A new court order allows YouTube to substitute anonymized data in place of user IDs, IP addresses and visitor IDs.

It’s probably a good idea to keep a close eye on this case as it winds its way through the court system. All is clear for now, but things have a way of changing. They already have once, right?