May 14, 2010 by James Oliver
YouTube announced this week that they would now be offering a third level of privacy for users to implement on the videos that they upload to the site.
The new feature will make it easier for users to share clips online without actually have to set the video to private as was the case in the past.
The new ‘unlisted video’ option will allow anyone that has a physical link to the video to watch it but it will not show up in YouTube search results, users profiles or channel pages.
Unlike the current ‘private video’ option the user who has created the unlisted video will not need to set up permissions for who is able to watch that video and the watcher will not need to be registered with the site in order to watch it, the user will simply require the URL.
The feature is aimed primarily at those users that wish to share videos with people but are not signed up members of the YouTube community.
The new unlisted option, however, will not give the owner of the video the same options as the current private setting function which allows you to cut someone off from having access to the video if they abuse it. There is no way to do this with the new unlisted option as possession of the URL will allow viewing of the video by whoever has it.
When asked whether the new unlisted option will change how YouTube scans uploaded videos for content that does not comply with their terms, YouTube spokesperson Chris Dale has this to say:
“Unlisted videos are treated just like any other YouTube video on YouTube and are subject to the same Community Guidelines and DMCA complaint procedures. Users can flag videos that they believe violate our Community Guidelines. The YouTube team reviews flagged videos 24 hours a day 7 days a week and removes those videos which violate our Guidelines. Users can also file DMCA complaints against unlisted videos that they believe violate their copyrights. We do not allow users with any Community Guidelines or copyright strikes against their accounts to upload unlisted videos.
So the new option will not have any effect on what is going on behind the scenes of a user’s uploads.
Related posts:
