[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] on Thursday dissmissed [opinion] a copyright infringement lawsuit by Viacom against Google’s YouTube [corporate websites]. Viacom, which owns Comedy Central, MTV and VH1, was seeking $1 billion in damages as well as an injunction against YouTube for clips that were posted on the website without authorization. The court said YouTube, a popular online video site, was protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) [text, PDF] “safe harbor” provision. Viacom previously brought a similar suit [JURIST report] against YouTube in 2007, but was unsuccessful.

Google is also facing both domestic and international criticism over its privacy policy. In February, EU data protection agencies announced plans [JURIST report] to take action against Google and investigate the company’s failure to comply with EU privacy laws. Previously, 27 EU states warned [JURIST report] Google that its confidentiality rules do not comply with EU law and gave the company four months to implement recommendations from the EU data protection agencies. In December an Italian court overturned a conviction of Google executives [JURIST report] for privacy violations from allowing a bullying video to be posted on its site. Further, in November, Google was fined $22.5 million [JURIST report] for alleged privacy misrepresentations concerning Apple’s Safari Internet browser.