In his written order, which covered a number of requests for evidence, Stanton cited a Feb. 22 posting to Google's official blog saying that in most cases, an Internet Protocol address "without additional information" -- typically from an Internet service provider -- can't identify an individual.
That's not always true, though, and people assuming that their behavior will remain private sometimes use their legal names as log-on handles.
In addition to a law that specifically protects video renters from being identified, "there is a more fundamental constitutional issue about the right to view videos anonymously, read anonymously, receive information anonymously," said attorney Kurt Opsahl of the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"IP addresses are the primary means for identifying individual speakers on the Internet," he said. "It's vital that they be protected and recognized as personally identifying information."
Both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center believe that Google and other firms should collect less personal data, save it for shorter periods and alter it so that it can't be traced to individuals.
Authorities have mixed opinions on the sensitivity of IP addresses. In Europe, regulators decided in February that the addresses were personal data subject to significant protection. In U.S. court cases, companies suing over defamation on the Web often have to show the judge that they have a good case -- and the anonymous critics get a chance to respond -- before a service provider can be compelled to turn over an IP address.
Google wants to keep individual histories to show more-relevant videos and to comply with laws in other countries. An IP address could reveal that a viewer is in India, for example, and therefore by law must be kept from seeing a U.S. comedian mocking Gandhi, a protected national hero.
Experts said that because Wednesday's ruling covered a broad range of requests and no consumer representatives were allowed to argue against the data release, it might not set a pattern for other judges.
But other copyright plaintiffs could sue and seek user IP addresses as a means to ferret out individual names, said Jennifer Urban, director of the USC Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic. Even if only the IP addresses change hands, Urban said, "it may be that the database is not kept as secure as it is here, or it's turned over and a party decides to leak the information."
If that happens, Urban said, "then the user's expectation that their information stays on a Google server will be completely undermined."
As it stands, the order could embolden other companies to engage in fishing expeditions against other targets, to "turn a company upside down" and extract data about people's online behavior, said Kenneth D. Freundlich, an entertainment lawyer in Beverly Hills.
Viacom lost several other attempts to force evidence out of Google, including a bid to get a look at the company's source code. But statistics about the prevalence of piracy that it could generate from even anonymous user data could provide a major boost to the case, legal experts said.
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joseph.menn@latimes.com
jessica.guynn@latimes.com
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Times staff writer Dawn Chmielewski contributed to this report.
