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The ruling comes as part of Viacom's copyright battle with the search giant. The owner of hit TV shows such as South Park and Desperate Housewives claims clips of its programmes have been viewed 1.5 billion times on the ubiquitous video-sharing site.

Consequently, a federal judge has ordered Google to hand over its viewer log to Viacom. The log contains the IP addresses, usernames and details of the videos watched.

However, the court order says Viacom must only use the information to prove its claims that YouTube is a prime source of piracy, and not for the prosecution of individual users. Viacom may, for example, use the logs to prove that most first-time viewers are

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watching copyrighted material.

Nevertheless, the ruling has angered privacy advocates.

"The Court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube," claims the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users."

Google has appealed to Viacom to allow it to strip personal data from the logs before handing them over. "We are pleased the court put some limits on discovery, including refusing to allow Viacom to access users' private videos and our search technology," Google claims in a statement.

"We are disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for viewing history. We will ask Viacom to respect users' privacy and allow us to anonymise the logs before producing them under the court's order."

The outcome of the case could have enormous ramifications for Google, which has long admitted it's struggling to make money from YouTube, which it bought for $1.65bn in 2006.

The UK's Premier League has also asked for class-action status alongside Viacom, in a case that could potentially open the floodgates for a series of copyright suits.