YouTube's Blog


The Law and Your Privacy
As you may have seen in the news, YouTube received a court order to produce viewing data from our database, including usernames and IP addresses. In order to protect our community's privacy, we strongly opposed this motion when Viacom and others filed it.

The court felt differently and ordered us to produce the data. Viacom said that they need general viewing information to determine the proportion of views on YouTube of copyright infringing content vs. non-infringing content.

Of course, we have to follow legal process. But since IP addresses and usernames aren't necessary to determine general viewing practices, our lawyers have asked their lawyers to let us remove that information before we hand over the data they're seeking. (You should know, IP addresses identify a computer, not the person using it. It's not possible to determine your identity solely based on your IP address. Rather, an IP address can reveal what geographic area you're connecting from, or which Internet service provider you're using.)

Why do we keep this information in the first place? It helps us personalize the YouTube experience, getting you closer to the videos you most want to watch. We have many features on the site that help users discover and share compelling content, and we're improving the video experience through recommendations, related videos, and personalized directories that help you find meaningful videos.

We'll continue to fight for your right to share and broadcast your work. The court did impose some encouraging limits -- they agreed with us that Viacom should not have access to private videos or our search technology. Also, the information we provide will be designated highly confidential under court order and only Viacom's outside counsel and experts will have access to it.

Legal matters aside, our focus remains on providing you with the best possible YouTube experience and we continue to be committed to protecting your privacy. Every day, millions of creative people from around the world are posting new, original content. You, our community, are creating the YouTube experience now and tomorrow.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Team

The YouTube Screening Room: Round 2
It's been two weeks since the launch of The YouTube Screening Room, and that can only mean one thing: a fresh batch of short films for your viewing pleasure.

For those of you who missed the initial announcement, The YouTube Screening Room is our new platform to help top films from around the world find the audiences they deserve. So far, hundreds of thousands of YouTubers have checked out the films, and thousands more have left comments.



We hope you'll enjoy the second round of films as much as you enjoyed the first. "The Clap," from the UK, tells the comic story of a music aficionado who finds a unique way to celebrate his favorite performer. "The Big Empty," from the US, stars Selma Blair as a young woman searching for a cure to her inner ache. "I Met the Walrus," from Canada, is the beautiful animated tale of a 14-year-old Beatle fan's real-life encounter with John Lennon. Finally, "School of Life," from the UK, follows a schoolboy as he learns life's most important lesson.



Stay tuned for our third round of films, debuting in two weeks on July 18.

Finally, for those of you interested in being featured in the YouTube Screening Room, email ytscreeningroom@youtube.com.

Happy viewing,

YouTube Film

Mobile Tricks Videos: What can you do with your phone?
Our friends over at Google Mobile have started a new YouTube channel called Mobile Tricks. They want to know what you can do with your cell phone, and start you off with a guy who's a bit obsessed with them. Look familiar? You might have seen him before in a unitard.



They're asking for all kinds of tricks, from the useful to the completely ridiculous, and they can be with or without Google Mobile products. To submit a video, start and end it with these slides, and submit it to their channel page. They're putting the best submissions in their playlists and blogging about their favorites, and we put one of our favorites on the YouTube home page over the weekend – holotext messaging.

For further inspiration, here's a video about how to save America with your phone (thanks to davestonedesign) and the WillItBlend guys doing what they do best.





Now show us what you’ve got!

The YouTube Team

Trendspotting Tuesday: Rube Goldberg Contraptions
Here on YouTube, there's no shortage of odes to 20th century cartoonist Rube Goldberg. If you're not familiar, Goldberg penned a comic series starring the eccentric Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts -- who created elaborate contraptions to perform simple tasks in roundabout ways.

Well, the Goldberg followers on YouTube have that concept down to a T -- and, better yet, they offer complete explanations of how they built their devices and what to expect once things get set in motion. This week's Trendspotting Tuesday showcases those budding inventors whose complicated "machines" do everything from putting dog food in a bowl to pouring a glass of beer to constructing a hamburger. There's also the Rube classics, like the Star Wars edition from RebrnEmpwrd and an office supply version from morebeefplease. Check out the full playlist here and on our home page:



Come back next Tuesday for another edition of Trendspotting Tuesday, where we highlight the amazing things people are doing on the site.

Cheers,
The YouTube Team

Green Guru Challenge with Michelle Kaufmann
The time has arrived for our next Guru Challenge, the ongoing programming initiative in which we ask a prominent or up-and-coming expert in their field to challenge you, the YouTube community, to use your creativity to new ends.

This month, it's all about using your talents in an eco-conscious way. Michelle Kaufmann, a YouTube architect with a passion for green design, wants to see what you can create with items you would normally throw away:



So come on, gurus and non-gurus alike! Show Michelle (and us) your innovative ideas and we'll feature some of the best ones in our HowTo & Style section and possibly also on the home page. Put your creative self out there and you just might inspire the YouTube community to do the same.

Our last Guru Challenge featured the ZooYork crew asking about your viral marketing ideas – in light of their own stickers-on-cockroaches-campaign - and you responded with videos that showed you finding interesting places to place your art, fun ways you incorporated your friends and family in your videos, and poking a little fun at the concept itself.



Long live DIY,
Sadia H.
YouTube HowTo & Style